Coinbase Settles $24.7M Fine in Ireland over Transaction Monitoring Lapses

Coinbase Europe Limited has agreed to pay a 21.5 million euro ($24.7 million) settlement to the Central Bank of Ireland after technical failures in its transaction monitoring system between 2021 and 2022. The company said internal testing uncovered coding errors that caused certain transactions to be only partially screened for suspicious activity. Coinbase said the flaws were fixed within weeks and a full review of affected activity followed.

During the review, about 185,000 transactions were flagged; roughly 2,700 suspicious transaction reports covered an estimated $15 million. Coinbase said the filings did not confirm illicit activity but were required under Irish anti-money laundering rules. The Irish Independent said the assessed transactions exceeded $202 billion and made up about 31% of Coinbase Europe’s activity for the period.

Regulators based the penalty on Coinbase’s average annual Irish revenue from 2021 to 2024, estimated at $480 million. As a registered virtual asset service provider, the exchange must operate robust systems to detect and report potential money-laundering risks. Coinbase said the issue stemmed from three coding errors across five of its 21 monitoring “scenarios,” which failed to fully screen crypto addresses when special characters separated them.

In response, Coinbase says it has tightened its Transaction Monitoring System with stricter pre-deployment reviews, expanded scenario testing, and ongoing improvements aimed at catching evolving high-risk behavior. “Coinbase recognizes the importance of effective AML procedures and takes our obligations seriously,” the firm said.

Coinbase has deepened its presence in Ireland since opening a Dublin office in 2018 and securing an e-money license in 2019. In 2023, it chose Ireland as its EU crypto hub ahead of MiCA, positioning it to passport services across 27 member states when rules fully take effect.