Central Bank of Ireland fines Coinbase Europe $25 million for breaching anti-money laundering monitoring obligations

The Central Bank of Ireland fined Coinbase Europe Limited €21,464,734 (approximately $24.7 million) for breaching its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing transaction monitoring obligations between April 2021 and March 2025. The breach occurred because configuration faults in Coinbase Europe's monitoring system left over 30 million transactions, valued at more than €176 billion, unmonitored for 12 months. Coinbase Europe admitted to these breaches, which included lacking adequate internal controls and neglecting extra checks on nearly 185,000 other transactions. After a review, the firm filed 2,708 late suspicious transaction reports covering potential crimes like fraud and cyberattacks. The final fine of €21.5 million reflects a 30% discount following a settlement agreement, which Coinbase Europe accepted pending High Court confirmation. Coinbase attributed the issue to coding errors and stated it has since fixed the problems and strengthened its compliance processes.

(Source：The Block)