The Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) has fined Coinbase Europe Limited (CBEL) €21,464,734 for breaching anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) laws. This penalty is noted as one of the regulator’s most significant fines against a cryptocurrency company.
The settlement, announced on Wednesday, November 5, 2025, addresses violations that occurred between April 23, 2021, and March 19, 2025. These breaches were attributed to coding errors in transaction monitoring systems, which resulted in certain crypto transactions being left unscreened.
The Central Bank of Ireland's initial sanction of €30,663,906 was reduced by 30%. This reduction was granted due to Coinbase Europe Limited's admission of the breaches, its cooperation with the investigation, and its agreement to settle under the Administrative Sanctions Procedure.
Following this recent sanction by the Central Bank, Coinbase Europe's total fines across 162 enforcement cases now surpass €428 million.
Coinbase Admits Fault and Agrees to Settlement
The breaches were a result of three coding errors introduced between 2021 and 2022. These errors affected five out of CBEL’s 21 transaction monitoring scenarios.
These coding errors led to a failure in properly screening cryptocurrency addresses containing special characters. Consequently, over 30.44 million transactions, with a combined value exceeding €176 billion, bypassed the monitoring systems designed to detect suspicious activity.
The issues were self-detected through internal testing by CBEL and were subsequently fixed within weeks. However, delays in completing retrospective reviews extended the period of the breach until 2025.
The cryptocurrency exchange company has since conducted advanced screening on approximately 185,000 higher-risk transactions from the affected batch. This resulted in the filing of 2,708 suspicious transaction reports (STRs) with authorities, involving approximately €15 million in value. No confirmed illicit activity was identified from these reports.
The Central Bank's fine was calculated based on CBEL’s average annual revenue in Ireland from 2021 to 2024, which Coinbase reported as €417 million. Additional violations included insufficient policies and procedures, as well as untimely reporting of system failures to the CBI.
Significant Volume of Trades Unscreened
In a statement, Coinbase characterized the settlement as addressing “past transaction monitoring errors” that occurred from 2021 to 2022. The company emphasized its swift response and ongoing commitment to compliance.
“Coinbase recognizes the importance of effective AML procedures and takes our obligations very seriously,” the company stated.
Improvements implemented following the incident include enhanced testing protocols before deployment, increased and broader coverage of monitoring scenarios, and continuous system upgrades to address emerging risks.
CBEL has been operating from Dublin since 2018 and has held an e-money institution license since 2019. In 2023, the company designated Ireland as its EU hub under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. Coinbase remains one of only 22 registered virtual asset service providers (VASPs) with the CBI.