Central Bank of Ireland fines Coinbase Europe Limited EUR 21,464,734 for AML transaction monitoring breaches

The Central Bank of Ireland has taken enforcement action against Coinbase Europe Limited, fining the firm EUR 21,464,734 for breaches of anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism transaction monitoring obligations under the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010 between 23 April 2021 and 19 March 2025. The sanction follows faults in the configuration of Coinbase Europe’s transaction monitoring system, which resulted in 30,442,437 transactions not being properly monitored over a 12-month period. Those transactions totalled more than EUR 176 billion and represented around 31% of all Coinbase Europe transactions during the period of the faults. It took almost three years to complete monitoring of the impacted transactions, which led to 2,708 Suspicious Transaction Reports being filed with the national Financial Intelligence Unit for further analysis and potential investigation, with suspicions linked to serious criminal activity. Coinbase Europe also admitted failures to adopt internal policies, controls and procedures to prevent and detect money laundering and terrorist financing, and to conduct additional monitoring for 184,790 transactions. The outcome was settled on 5 November 2025 under the Central Bank’s Administrative Sanctions Procedure using the undisputed facts settlement process, with the Central Bank determining a reprimand and a monetary penalty of EUR 30,663,906 before applying a 30% settlement discount. The sanctions are subject to High Court confirmation and will take effect once confirmed.