Central Bank of Ireland fines Coinbase Ireland €3.25M over safeguarding and outsourcing failures

The Central Bank of Ireland has fined Coinbase Ireland, Coinbase's licensed e-money arm, €3,252,618 for breaching safeguarding and outsourcing obligations under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 between November 2020 and August 2025. The fine reflects a 30% settlement discount on €4,646,597 and still needs High Court confirmation.

The regulator said Coinbase Ireland relied excessively on its US parent to run safeguarding processes, lacked enough local expertise to oversee customer funds, let its safeguarding account run underfunded for long periods and had weak internal controls and escalation.

Coinbase says it self-reported the issues and that no customer lost money or lost access to funds.

It is the second Irish penalty on Coinbase's European operations in under a year, after a €21.5 million fine on Coinbase Europe for transaction-monitoring failures.