Coinbase Slapped With $24M Ireland Fine Over Transaction Monitoring Failures

Another day, another crypto compliance crackdown—this time hitting a US giant on EU soil.

Ireland's regulators just made an example of Coinbase, fining the exchange $24 million for what amounts to surveillance slip-ups in its anti-money laundering systems. The 'technical error' excuse? Not flying with Dublin's financial watchdogs.

While the exchange claims it's already fixed the gaps, the penalty stings during an already brutal bear market. Compliance costs keep climbing—just ask any exchange still standing after 2023's bloodbath.

Funny how these 'errors' always seem to benefit trading volume before regulators come knocking. A $24M oopsie hardly dents Coinbase's war chest, but it's another reminder that crypto's wild west days are over. The taxman always gets his cut—even in decentralized fairy tales.

Coinbase tightens compliance after error

Once identified, Coinbase shared that it fixed the issue within weeks and re-ran all affected transactions through the corrected TMS. 

During that period, CBEL processed about 97 million crypto transactions. The review flagged some 185,000 transactions for further checks, of which about 2,700 went on to be the subject of suspicious transaction reports to Irish authorities. These had a total value of around €13 million.

Both the regulator and Coinbase noted that filing a suspicious transaction report doesn’t necessarily mean any wrongdoing took place. Such reports are filed whenever there’s a reasonable basis for concern, as required by law.

Coinbase said it has since tightened its compliance checks—improving how its Transaction Monitoring System is tested before any code changes, increasing oversight, and adding new tools to spot emerging risks. 

The company said these steps aim to ensure that similar errors don’t happen again, and it “recognizes the importance of effective AML procedures and takes our obligations under AML legislation and regulatory guidance very seriously.”

Also Read: Coinbase Urges Treasury to Keep GENIUS Act Aligned with Congress