The Central Bank has fined cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Europe €21.5 million for breaching anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) monitoring obligations. The breaches occurred between April 2021 and March 2025, marking one of the most significant enforcement actions against a crypto firm in Ireland.
Coinbase Europe, part of the global Coinbase Group, provides crypto asset and wallet services to customers worldwide, allowing them to trade digital currencies. As a virtual asset service provider, it is required by law to continuously monitor customer transactions and report any suspicious activity to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and Revenue without delay.
The Central Bank said Coinbase Europe failed to properly monitor over 30 million transactions during a 12-month period due to configuration faults in its transaction monitoring system. These unmonitored transactions, valued at more than €176 billion, represented about 31% of all Coinbase Europe transactions in that timeframe. According to the regulator, the lapses meant that transactions linked to potential criminal activity — including money laundering, fraud, cyberattacks, drug trafficking, and child exploitation — went unchecked.
It took the company nearly three years to complete the review of affected transactions, during which it filed 2,708 suspicious transaction reports (STRs) with the FIU. The Central Bank noted that Coinbase Europe admitted to breaching its monitoring obligations by failing to track over 30 million transactions and by not having adequate internal controls to detect and prevent financial crime.
Colm Kincaid, the Central Bank’s Deputy Governor for Consumer and Investor Protection, said the case underscores the importance of strong AML systems. “The failure of such a system within any financial institution creates an opportunity for criminals to evade detection — and criminals will take that opportunity,” he said. He added that the anonymity and cross-border nature of cryptocurrencies make them particularly attractive to those seeking to conceal illicit funds.
Coinbase acknowledged the failures, attributing them to “technical coding errors” in its transaction monitoring system between 2021 and 2022. The company said the coding flaws prevented five of its 21 monitoring scenarios from fully screening all customer transactions, particularly those involving crypto addresses separated by special characters.
Once the issue was identified, Coinbase said it corrected the coding errors within weeks and reprocessed all affected transactions. This review led to roughly 2,700 STRs being filed with the Irish authorities and about 185,000 transactions flagged for further examination. The company added that there was no evidence that the unmonitored transactions had led to criminal activity.
Coinbase said it has since improved its compliance systems by enhancing testing and oversight of its transaction monitoring software. “Coinbase recognises the importance of effective AML procedures and takes our obligations under AML legislation and regulatory guidance very seriously,” the company said.
The €21.5 million penalty marks the Central Bank’s 162nd enforcement action, bringing total fines imposed to more than €428 million.
