When Silvergate was on the verge of collapse in 2023, Coinbase instructed 30 customers to deposit funds into an alternate account held by Coinbase at another U.S. bank.
- Ireland’s central bank fined Coinbase Ireland 3.25 million euros ($3.6 million) for alleged failures in safeguarding customer funds and overseeing outsourced services.
- The regulator said Coinbase Ireland relied excessively on its U.S.-based parent and lacked adequate systems and controls, while Coinbase disclosed that coding errors 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 unable to access their funds. The penalty follows a 21.4 million-euro Irish fine imposed on Coinbase Europe in 2025 for anti-money laundering failures.
Coinbase Ireland was hit with a 3.25 million-euro ($3.6 million) fine from the country’s central bank over alleged breaches of its safeguarding and outsourcing obligations.
The Irish division of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global
Safeguarding and outsourcing requirements underpin the protection of customer funds. Companies are obliged to keep them adequately funded and monitored and set up procedures to report to the regulator when material changes occur.
“They placed excessive reliance on the U.S.-based Coinbase Group as an outsourced service provider to implement safeguarding processes and controls [and] failed to adequately safeguard customers’ funds, both through inadequate system design and insufficient control testing,” the CBI said.
When crypto-friendly bank Silvergate was on the verge of collapse in 2023, Coinbase instructed 30 customers to deposit funds into an alternate account held by Coinbase at another U.S. bank, the company said in a statement following the CBI’s announcement.
The funds were therefore held alongside those belonging to customers of another Coinbase entity, a breach of safeguarding requirements.
Coinbase also referred to euro withdrawals from U.S. or U.K.-based customers being paid from Coinbase Ireland’s safeguarding account, and coding errors leading to the account being underfunded by an average of 0.54% in 2023 and the first half of 2024.
“No customer suffered any financial loss as a result of these matters, and no customer was ever unable to access their funds,” Coinbase said.
The penalty arrives almost one year after the CBI fined Coinbase Europe 21.4 million euros for breaching its anti-money laundering (AML) obligations between 2021 and 2025.
Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years.