The Central Bank of Ireland fined Coinbase Europe Limited , part of Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN), €21,464,734 for allegedly breaching its anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing transaction monitoring obligations between 2021 and 2025. Specifically, the Central Bank said it has fined Coinbase Europe for violating applicable AML guidelines and not effectively combatting CFT issues with respect to transaction monitoring as required by the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010 between the dates of 23 April 2021 and 19 March 2025.
Coinbase Europe, which is currently operating and doing business as part of the Coinbase Group, offers crypto asset and wallet services to customers globally to facilitate their “use of the Coinbase Group’s trading platform to buy and sell crypto assets.”
As a virtual asset service provider, Coinbase Europe is regularly required “to monitor customer transactions on an ongoing basis.”
Where Coinbase Europe suspects that a transaction is facilitating money laundering or terrorist financing it is “required to file a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) with the national Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and Revenue Commissioners as soon as possible.”
Coinbase Europe has been fined due to “faults in the configuration of their transaction monitoring system, which resulted in more than 30 million transactions not being properly monitored over a 12-month period.”
The value of these transactions amounted to “over €176 billion, and accounted for approximately 31% of all Coinbase Europe transactions conducted in the period when the faults existed.”
Further, it took Coinbase Europe almost “three years to fully complete the monitoring of the impacted transactions.”
This subsequent monitoring led to the reporting of “2,708 STRs to the FIU for further analysis and potential investigation.”
As stated in the update, the STRs submitted in “respect of the late monitoring of the transactions contained suspicions associated with criminal activities including the following: money laundering; fraud/scams; drug trafficking; cyber-attacks (malware/ransomware); and child sexual exploitation.”
The monitoring of transactions in real time and the filing of STRs without delay is a cornerstone of the “effectiveness and efficiency of the AML/CFT regulatory regime.”
Failure to do so can hinder how the regulatory and criminal justice system can detect, “report, disrupt, investigate and prosecute criminality.”
Coinbase Europe has accepted that it “breached its transaction monitoring obligations under the CJA 2010 by failing” to:
- Fully and properly monitor 30,442,437 transactions;
- Adopt internal policies, controls and procedures to prevent and detect the commission of money laundering and terrorist financing; and
- Conduct additional monitoring in respect of 184,790 transactions.
This announcement follows the settlement that was reportedly reached between the Central Bank as well as Coinbase Europe on November 5, 2025.
Coinbase Europe reportedly admitted the “prescribed contraventions and has agreed to the undisputed facts as set out in the Settlement Notice (PDF 543.78KB).”
As part of the settlement agreement reached between the Central Bank and Coinbase Europe, the Central Bank has determined “that sanctions comprising a reprimand and monetary penalty in the amount of €30,663,906 are warranted.”
The application of a “30% settlement scheme discount brings the amount to €21,464,734.”
The sanctions have now reportedly been “accepted” by Coinbase Europe.
The sanctions are subject to confirmation “by the High Court and will take effect once confirmed.”
Colm Kincaid, Deputy Governor – Consumer & Investor Protection, said:
“To be effective in combatting financial crime, law enforcement agencies rely on regulated financial institutions to have systems in place to monitor transactions and report suspicions. The failure of such a system within any financial institution creates an opportunity for criminals to evade detection – and criminals will take that opportunity.”
They added that crypto has certain technological features which, together with its “anonymity-enhancing capabilities and cross-border nature, makes it attractive to criminals looking to move their funds.”
This is why it is important that firms “engaged in crypto services have robust controls in place to identify and report suspicious transactions.”
Where system failures do actually occur, it is imperative “that they are reported to the Central Bank without delay so that appropriate actions can be taken to manage and mitigate the risk.”