The Central Bank of Ireland fined Coinbase Europe Limited €21,464,734 on 6 November 2025 for breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing obligations relating to transaction monitoring, with the sanction representing a 30 per cent reduction from the gross penalty of €30,663,906 following Coinbase's agreement to settle the matter. The breaches covered the period from April 2021 to March 2025, including a 12-month period in which more than 30 million transactions worth over €176 billion were not properly monitored.
The enforcement action is the 162nd outcome under the Central Bank of Ireland's enforcement programme and brings the total value of fines imposed by the regulator to more than €428 million across all cases. Coinbase Europe was registered in Ireland as a virtual asset service provider in December 2022 and serves customers across the European Economic Area.
CODING ERRORS AND REMEDIATION
The breaches identified by the Central Bank of Ireland centred on transaction monitoring — the process by which regulated financial institutions are required to identify and flag unusual or suspicious patterns of activity that may indicate money laundering or the financing of terrorism.
The breach period ran from April 2021 to March 2025. Coding errors affecting five of the 21 scenarios in Coinbase Europe's transaction monitoring system meant that more than 30 million transactions went unmonitored over a 12-month period, and the remedial monitoring took almost three years to complete, leading the firm to file 2,708 suspicious transaction reports. The settlement discount of 30 per cent, which reduced the gross fine from €30,663,906 to €21,464,734, reflects Coinbase Europe's agreement to settle the matter.
The fine is the Central Bank of Ireland's first enforcement outcome in the crypto sector.