Irish central bank fines Coinbase Ireland $3.6M over safeguarding

The Central Bank of Ireland fined Coinbase Ireland €3.25 million (~$3.6 million) for breaching customer-funds safeguarding and outsourcing obligations. The regulator said Coinbase Ireland relied excessively on its U.S.-based parent as an outsourced service provider and failed to adequately safeguard customer funds through inadequate system design and insufficient control testing.

When Silvergate teetered on collapse in 2023, Coinbase directed 30 customers to deposit funds into an alternate account held by Coinbase at another U.S. bank, placing those funds alongside another Coinbase entity's customers — a safeguarding breach. Coding errors also left a safeguarding account underfunded by an average of 0.54% in 2023 and the first half of 2024.

Coinbase said no customers lost money or were ever unable to access their funds. The fine follows a €21.4 million penalty the CBI imposed on Coinbase Europe in 2025 over anti-money-laundering failures.