- Coinbase paid a €21.5M ($24.7M) fine to Ireland’s central bank over AML system lapses.
- The issue involved coding errors that missed screening 31% of transactions in 2021–2022.
- Coinbase has since tightened oversight, testing, and monitoring to prevent similar issues.
Coinbase Europe Limited, the European arm of the U.S.-based crypto exchange, has agreed to pay a €21.5 million ($24.7 million) fine to the Central Bank of Ireland after technical errors in its compliance system caused transaction monitoring lapses between 2021 and 2022.
According to Coinbase, the issue stemmed from coding errors that caused its internal software to partially miss screening some transactions for suspicious activity. The exchange said it discovered the flaw through internal testing, corrected it within weeks, and later conducted a full review of affected transactions.
Transaction Oversight Gaps and Review Results
The review flagged around 185,000 transactions for further analysis, representing roughly 31% of all Coinbase Europe transactions during that time — valued at over $202 billion, according to the Irish Independent. Out of these, Coinbase ultimately filed approximately 2,700 suspicious transaction reports covering around $15 million in activity, as required under Irish Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations.
Coinbase stated that these reports did not confirm any illegal behavior but were submitted to meet compliance obligations. The Central Bank’s fine was calculated based on Coinbase’s average Irish revenue between 2021 and 2024, which is estimated at $480 million.
Enhanced Oversight and Compliance Reforms
Coinbase explained that the underlying issue originated from three separate coding errors affecting five of its 21 transaction-monitoring scenarios, specifically those designed to screen crypto addresses with certain special characters. The company has since introduced a series of compliance upgrades, including stricter pre-deployment testing, expanded monitoring scenario coverage, and continuous oversight enhancements to catch evolving high-risk patterns.
In a company statement, Coinbase said it “recognizes the importance of effective AML procedures and takes our obligations under AML legislation and regulatory guidance very seriously.”
Coinbase’s Growing Presence in Europe
Coinbase opened its Dublin office in 2018 and obtained an e-money license the following year, making it one of the few crypto firms in Ireland to hold such authorization. By 2023, the company had officially designated Ireland as its European crypto hub, ahead of the rollout of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework, which will allow exchanges to operate across all 27 EU member states.
