The company worked without registration in the region from November 2020 to August 2022. The main claim of officials is that the company has not paid fees all this time, which gave it a competitive advantage over other market participants.
“Coinbase has a significant number of clients in the Netherlands. All the indicated time, the crypto-exchange did not pay any commissions to the bank and did not incur other expenses, ”the statement says.
The central bank considers the incident a serious violation, so they increased the amount of the fine from the base $2.18 million to $3.6 million. Coinbase does not agree with the fine, representatives of the exchange believe that the entire period of operation, allegedly without registration, the company was expecting to receive this very registration. The claims of the central bank, according to the company, do not concern its actually provided services.
Coinbase has until March 2 to challenge the fine. Representatives of the company said that they respect the claims of the Central Bank, but intend to defend their position.
Earlier, Moody's rating agency downgraded Coinbase's long-term credit rating (CFR) to non-investment grade B2 due to the company's 2022 revenue decline.