The Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) has imposed a €21.5 million ($25 million) fine on Coinbase Europe, the Irish subsidiary of the U.S.-based crypto exchange giant Coinbase Global, for failing to properly monitor suspicious transactions between 2021 and 2025.
According to the regulator, the penalty was issued after Coinbase’s transaction monitoring system failed to review over 30 million transactions during a 12-month period — representing roughly 31% of all operations handled by the Irish branch. The total value of those unmonitored transactions exceeded €176 billion ($190 billion).
It took Coinbase Europe nearly three years to complete the backlog of reviews. As a result, the company eventually reported 2,708 suspicious activities to authorities, potentially linked to crimes such as money laundering, fraud, drug trafficking, cyberattacks, and child exploitation.
Coinbase admitted to three coding errors that disrupted five of its 21 monitoring scenarios in 2021 and 2022. The exchange said the flaws were corrected within several weeks and emphasized that it had strengthened its internal controls to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Initially, regulators proposed a €30.6 million ($33 million) fine, but the amount was reduced after Coinbase reached a settlement agreement with the CBI.
“Law enforcement agencies rely on regulated institutions to report suspicious crypto transactions. Any breakdown in these systems can be quickly exploited by criminals,” said Colm Kincaid, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland.
Recently, the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) urged U.S. authorities not to grant Coinbase a federal banking license, citing ongoing compliance concerns.
