Dutch central bank fines cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase €3.3 million

The DNB said it had taken into consideration that Coinbase is one of the largest cryptocurrency companies and had a “significant number of customers in the Netherlands”.

Coinbase was out of compliance between November 2020 and August 2022, the DNB said.

This is not the first time Coinbase’s operations have been red flagged by government regulators and authorities.

Earlier this month, Coinbase Global Inc reached a $100-million settlement with New York’s Department of Financial Services (DFS).

The settlement, which includes a $50-million penalty, caps the regulator’s investigation into the firm’s compliance with requirements to prevent money laundering.

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DFS found Coinbase treated its onboarding requirements for customers as a “simple check-the-box” and did not do sufficient background checks, DFS had said in a statement.The firm has taken “substantial measures” to address what it called “historical shortcomings,” Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, said after the settlement.

Coinbase is expected to pay another $50 million to boost compliance efforts aimed at blocking potential criminals from using the exchange, it said. The deal also requires Coinbase to work with a third-party monitor.

Other troubles

On January 11, Nikhil Wahi, accused of receiving insider trading information from his brother Ishan Wahi, a former project manager at Coinbase, was sentenced to 10-months in prison.

The US authorities in July last year charged the brothers and their Indian-American friend Sameer Ramani, 33, of Houston with wire fraud conspiracy by using confidential information from Coinbase and making $1.5 million in illicit money.

While reports suggested that Nikhil, 26, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, his brother Ishan, 32, pleaded not guilty to federal charges of insider trading and Ramani remains at large.

Both Ishan and Ramani are staring at a maximum sentence of 20 years each.