Ireland’s central bank has moved to fine Coinbase Ireland €3.25 million after finding weaknesses in how the company protected customer funds over a period of several years. The regulator said calculation errors and control failings led to repeated shortfalls in a designated customer-funds account, which at one point reached €5.2 million in 2024.
Coinbase said no customers lost money and that access to funds was never restricted. The company also said it disclosed the problems to regulators, strengthened its controls and has since fixed the issues.
Regulator cites segregation and oversight failings
The Central Bank of Ireland said Coinbase Ireland, which operates as an electronic money institution, was required to keep customer money safeguarded and separated from funds belonging to other entities. Its findings concluded that the company did not meet those standards.
According to the regulator, Coinbase Ireland depended too heavily on systems run by its U.S. parent to manage customer funds and did so without sufficient oversight at the Irish entity level. The central bank said this left the company exposed to errors in how customer-fund requirements were calculated and monitored.
Shortfalls lasted at least 18 months
The central bank found that some customer money was mixed with funds held by other Coinbase businesses. It said those problems contributed to shortfalls in the designated safeguarding account for at least 18 months.
The largest daily shortfall identified by regulators was €3.4 million in 2023. That peak later rose to €5.2 million in 2024, underscoring the scale of the gap the authority says developed within the firm’s safeguarding arrangements.
Settlement reduced the original penalty
The regulator said the original penalty was set at €4.65 million. That amount was reduced by 30% after Coinbase agreed to settle the matter, bringing the proposed fine to €3.25 million.
In addition to the monetary penalty, the company is to receive a formal reprimand. The sanction is still subject to confirmation by Ireland’s High Court. The central bank said there is no tolerance for weaknesses in safeguarding arrangements.
Part of a broader record of Irish penalties
The latest enforcement action follows a separate penalty against another Coinbase entity in Ireland. In November 2025, Coinbase Europe was fined €21.46 million over failures to monitor cryptocurrency transactions for suspicious activity.
Taken together, the two Irish cases bring the total value of regulatory penalties on Coinbase entities in the country to nearly €25 million. The next confirmed step in the current case is High Court approval of the fine and reprimand.
Source: news.bitcoin.com