Irish central bank hits Coinbase Europe with €21.5M fine for failed transaction monitoring

Ireland’s central bank has fined Coinbase Europe €21.5 million for failing to properly monitor millions of transactions, including some linked to criminal offences. Summary Over 30 million transactions worth €176 billion were not fully monitored due to coding errors in Coinbase’s system, with 2,708 later flagged as suspicious. Coinbase corrected the errors within weeks and has enhanced its monitoring and testing procedures to prevent recurrence. The €21.5 million fine was reduced from €30.7 million through a settlement discount. 30 million transactions slipped through Coinbase monitoring Ireland’s central bank has imposed a €21.5 million ($25 million) fine on Coinbase Europe, the Irish subsidiary of the U.S.-based crypto exchange, for failing to meet anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism transaction monitoring requirements. The regulator said configuration errors in Coinbase’s monitoring system left over 30 million transactions—valued at more than €176B—were not properly monitored over a 12-month period, including transactions linked to money laundering, fraud, drug trafficking, cybercrime, and child exploitation. The authorities said that it took Coinbase almost 3 years to fully review the affected transactions, ultimately flagging 2,708 as suspicious. Coinbase attributed the matter to three coding mistakes that affected 5 of its 21 monitoring scenarios, which prevented full screening of certain transactions in 2021 and 2022. The company said the errors were corrected within 2-3 weeks of detection. Coinbase also stated that it has implemented measures to prevent similar errors in the future. Under the settlement, the central bank clarified that the €13M in suspicious transactions identified do not necessarily indicate that any criminal activity actually occurred. The final fine was set at €21.5 million, reduced from the initial €30.7 million through a settlement discount and in consideration of Coinbase Europe’s average annual revenue of €417 million during the relevant period.