The Central Bank of Ireland set a €3.25 million fine on Coinbase Ireland after a settlement that deducted 30% from an initial €4.65 million penalty, announced on 22 October 2026.
Between November 2020 and August 2025, Coinbase Ireland did not fully protect customer funds, the regulator said, relying excessively on the US Coinbase Group for controls.
The regulator wrote to the sector on 9 December 2021 and 20 January 2023, and to Coinbase Ireland on 14 July 2022 and 27 March 2023, before a safeguarding officer was appointed in December 2024.
The fine and reprimand take effect only if the High Court confirms the settlement, the Central Bank said, and Coinbase Ireland has agreed to the sanctions.
The Central Bank of Ireland has fined Coinbase Ireland €3.25 million, a penalty it announced on Thursday, 22 October 2026. The figure is the product of a settlement: the regulator first set the penalty at €4.65 million (€4.6 million in some reports) and then applied a 30% discount once the two sides reached agreement. Coinbase Ireland is an electronic money institution and a wholly owned subsidiary of Coinbase Global Inc, a United States corporation. The company admitted the facts, so the regulator said no further investigation was needed, and it also issued a reprimand. The Irish entity is the one being fined, although the wider platform obtained its European licence in Luxembourg.
The regulator's central complaint is that Coinbase Ireland outsourced the critical function of safeguarding users' funds to a US Coinbase Group company for over four years, without keeping adequate local oversight or expertise. According to the Central Bank, the entity lacked the skill, governance structures and risk controls needed to identify and fix safeguarding failures when they occurred. Its account meant to protect the institution's customers held insufficient funds for long periods, and its control testing was inadequate. The entity also lacked processes to identify and report material changes in safeguarding to the regulator.
The Central Bank says it set out these requirements several times. It pointed to 'Dear CEO' letters sent to the sector on 9 December 2021 and 20 January 2023, and to letters sent directly to Coinbase Ireland on 14 July 2022 and 27 March 2023 that laid out the risk-mitigation programmes the company had to implement. The regulator said the oversight gap remained substantially unchanged until December 2024, when the company appointed a safeguarding directly responsible individual.
“The prescribed contraventions identified in this settlement notice reflect serious deficiencies in Coinbase Ireland's governance, risk management, and operational substance as an Irish regulated entity.”
The period under review runs from November 2020 to August 2025. BFM reports that accounts not belonging to Coinbase Ireland were used to receive customer deposits before the money was moved into safeguarding accounts. Coinbase said in a statement that the issues caused no losses for customers and did not limit their access to their funds. Bloomberg reported the penalty as €3.25 million ($3.6 million).
This is not the first penalty on Coinbase from the Central Bank. An earlier fine of €21.5 million in 2025 concerned oversight of 30 million transactions over one year, some of which may have been linked to criminal activity such as child sexual exploitation, according to BFM. The combined total of the two penalties is €24.75 million.
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The reprimand and the fine will not take effect unless the High Court confirms them, the Central Bank said. Until that confirmation, the settlement stands as an agreement between the regulator and Coinbase Ireland. The case centres on the Irish entity's reliance on its US parent for safeguarding, not on any claim that customers lost money, which Coinbase disputes.
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The penalty follows a €21.5 million fine in 2025 and covers November 2020 to August 2025, when customer funds were not fully protected. Coinbase Ireland agreed to the settlement, which still needs High Court confirmation.
AI text based on reports by SAPO, BFMTV, Bloomberg Business and other publishers. Published .