The Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) has imposed sanctions on crypto-asset service provider Coinbase Europe for contraventions of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010, which occurred between 23 April 2021 and 19 March 2025.
The sanctions imposed by the CBI include a reprimand and a monetary penalty in the amount of €30,663,906, – reduced to €21,464,734 after a settlement scheme discount was applied. The sanctions relate to failures to uphold anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing monitoring obligations over a twelve-month period.
The sanctions require confirmation of the Irish High Court before taking effect, and would be the fourth largest fine ever issued by the CBI.
Coinbase Europe is part of the global Coinbase Group, which operates a significant global trading platform for crypto assets. In April 2021, it became a “designated person” under the CJA 2010 and was registered as a virtual asset service provider (VASP) with the CBI in December 2022, meaning it was required to monitor transactions for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing purposes.
Where Coinbase suspects that a transaction is facilitating anti-money laundering or counter-terrorist financing, it must make a suspicious transaction report (STR) to the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) and the Revenue Commissioners as soon as possible.
However, due to technical faults in the configuration of Coinbase’s transaction monitoring system, more than 30 million transactions were not properly monitored over a 12 month period. The value of these transactions amounted to €176 billion. The company took three years to fully complete the proper monitoring of the transactions, resulting in the filing of 2,708 STRs with the GNECB.
Sarah Twohig, a crypto fraud and enforcement specialist with Pinsent Masons in Dublin, said the fine should send a signal to others in the industry of their obligations.
“The enforcement action taken by the Central Bank of Ireland against Coinbase Europe is a reminder of the significant impact a failure to comply with anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing obligations can have on all businesses that operate in the financial services industry,” she said.
“Businesses such as crypto exchanges and virtual asset service providers must prioritise these obligations, to ensure that the monitoring of assets in their custody is carried out in real time, so that it can be verified that such assets are not the proceeds of crypto fraud and are not being used for money-laundering purposes.”
As part of a settlement with the CBI (PDF, 543kb/36 pages), Coinbase Europe agreed it had failed to properly monitor 30,442,437 transactions during the 12-month period, and failed to conduct increased monitoring of 184,790 of these transactions.
It also accepted it had not adopted required internal policies and procedures to prevent and detect money laundering and terrorist financing.
The Central Bank of Ireland said the suspicious transactions were associated with serious criminal activities – including money laundering, drug trafficking, cyber attacks and child sexual exploitation. The fine is the first imposed on a regulated entity in the crypto industry by the regulator.
Colm Kincaid, deputy governor for consumer and investor protection with the Central Bank, said: “Crypto has particular technological features which, together with its anonymity-enhancing capabilities and cross-border nature, makes it especially attractive to criminals looking to move their funds.
“This is why it is especially important that firms engaged in crypto services have robust controls in place to identify and report suspicious transactions.”