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Ireland's central bank fines Coinbase Ireland €3.25 million for mixing and underfunding customer money
Summary
The Central Bank of Ireland fined Coinbase Ireland €3.25 million (about $3.6 million) over failures to safeguard customer funds and to oversee services it outsourced to its U.S. parent, CoinDesk, The Block and Bitcoin Magazine reported.
The regulator said the unit placed "excessive reliance" on the U.S.-based Coinbase group to run its safeguarding controls and that its safeguarding account was underfunded because of poor system design and weak control testing, according to CoinDesk and Bitcoin Magazine.
Coinbase said coding errors left the account underfunded by an average of about 0.54% in 2023 and the first half of 2024, and that during the March 2023 Silvergate crisis it told 30 customers to deposit funds into an account at another U.S. bank, mixing them with another Coinbase entity's customers' money.
Coinbase said no customer lost money or was ever unable to access their funds, per CoinDesk and Bitcoin Magazine.
Updates
- Update, : Oct. 22: Decrypt and Cointelegraph also reported the €3.25 million fine. Cointelegraph said Coinbase Ireland agreed with the facts of the enforcement action and the sanctions take effect once Ireland's High Court approves them; Decrypt called it the second penalty on the exchange's European arm in the last year.
Key facts
- Bitcoin Magazine said the breaches ran from November 2020 to August 2025 under Ireland's Electronic Money Regulations, and that the regulator set a €4.65 million base penalty before a 30% settlement discount.
- The fine and a reprimand still need confirmation from Ireland's High Court, Bitcoin Magazine reported.
- Enforcement director Karen O'Leary said failing to keep authorisation-stage assurances or to report material changes "is completely unacceptable," per Bitcoin Magazine.
- Coinbase said it self-reported many of the issues in January 2024, has since redesigned its safeguarding calculation, posted a €25 million guaranty bond and hired a dedicated head of safeguarding, Bitcoin Magazine reported.
- Euro withdrawals for U.S. and U.K. customers of other Coinbase units were at times paid from Coinbase Ireland's safeguarding account, Coinbase said, according to CoinDesk.
- The penalty follows a 2025 Irish fine on Coinbase Europe for anti-money-laundering failures, which CoinDesk put at €21.4 million and Bitcoin Magazine at €21.5 million.