Ireland Flags Crypto as Very Significant Risk in New AML Strategy
The Central Bank is expected to intensify technology-driven supervision as Ireland prepares for its 2028 FATF review.
Summary:
- Ireland rates crypto-assets as a Very Significant money laundering and terrorist financing risk.
- Crypto service providers are now treated as part of the financial system’s first line of defence.
- The country is advancing legislation implementing the EU Travel Rule for crypto transfers.
Ireland has placed crypto-assets among the highest-risk sectors in its new national strategy for fighting money laundering and terrorist financing, setting out a 2026-2030 program that combines tougher supervision with the EU’s expanding digital-asset rulebook.
The government’s accompanying National Risk Assessment gives crypto a “Very Significant” rating for both money laundering and terrorist financing, a step up from the equivalent “Significant” category in the previous assessment. For exchanges and other crypto-asset service providers operating from Ireland, the practical consequence is that MiCA authorization is only one part of the compliance burden: transaction traceability, sanctions controls, staffing and intelligence sharing are becoming equally important.
Crypto moved into Ireland’s highest financial-crime risk tier
The change in risk classification is one of the strongest signals in the documents.
Ireland’s overall money laundering threat is rated Moderate, but the assessment identifies several financial sectors where exposure is considerably higher. Traditional retail banks, digital banks and crypto-assets all received Very Significant ratings for both money laundering and terrorist financing.
For crypto specifically, the rating moved from Medium-High under Ireland’s previous scale to Very Significant under the new four-tier system.
The government does not argue that crypto itself is inherently illicit. Instead, the assessment points to characteristics that make monitoring more difficult: rapid cross-border settlement, pseudonymous wallets, continuously evolving products and services, DeFi, mixers, atomic swaps and peer-to-peer activity outside regulated intermediaries.
That distinction matters for firms. A high sectoral risk rating does not amount to a ban or imply that every transaction should be treated as suspicious. It means regulators expect controls, staffing and supervision to reflect the higher assessed exposure.
MiCA authorization does not end the AML transition
Ireland’s crypto regulatory structure changed substantially at the end of 2025.
The old Virtual Asset Service Provider registration regime ceased to apply on December 30, 2025. Firms wishing to continue providing covered services now need authorization as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider under MiCA, either from the Central Bank of Ireland or another competent authority within the EU.
The scale of that transition is striking. Ireland had 22 registered VASPs at the end of 2024, but the National Risk Assessment says only three CASPs were licensed in Ireland as of January 2026, partly because firms obtained authorization elsewhere in the EU.
MiCA also widens the regulatory perimeter beyond the AML-focused VASP model. CASPs face prudential and consumer-protection obligations alongside financial-crime controls.
Ireland’s strategy places those firms alongside banks, payment institutions, investment firms and other regulated businesses as the first line of defence against illicit finance.
The Travel Rule turns wallet transfers into a compliance issue
A second part of the strategy concerns transaction-level information.
The EU Transfer of Funds Regulation extends AML requirements to crypto transfers by applying the FATF Travel Rule, requiring information about the originator and beneficiary to accompany qualifying transactions. Ireland says domestic legislative work needed to implement the framework is well advanced.
For an exchange or regulated custodian, that means compliance increasingly follows the crypto transfer itself rather than stopping at customer onboarding.
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CASPs must also maintain policies and procedures addressing EU financial sanctions.
This makes interoperability between compliance systems a practical issue. A regulated exchange receiving assets from another platform needs sufficient information to assess who sent them, who should receive them and whether sanctions or other financial-crime controls are triggered.
The difficult edge of the framework remains activity outside regulated firms. Ireland’s risk assessment specifically identifies DeFi and peer-to-peer transactions as areas where parts of the crypto sector remain outside the regulated perimeter.
Compliance staffing is becoming a regulatory vulnerability itself
Ireland also identifies a less obvious problem: finding people capable of supervising these systems.
The National Risk Assessment says Irish-regulated CASPs face difficulty recruiting compliance personnel who understand both blockchain technology and AML requirements. Outsourcing key risk functions to international group companies can create additional weaknesses when controls are not adapted to the Irish business.
Information sharing is another gap. The assessment says limited frameworks for exchanging intelligence between CASPs and traditional financial institutions can reduce the ability to identify broader laundering patterns.
Ireland wants to address that weakness through deeper public-private cooperation. Its existing Joint Intelligence Group already connects financial institutions with law enforcement, while FIU Ireland participates in partnerships involving banks, accountancy organizations and fintech businesses.
For crypto firms, regulatory competitiveness may therefore depend increasingly on compliance infrastructure rather than simply obtaining a MiCA license.
The Central Bank is being told to use technology more aggressively
Ireland’s strategy also asks the Central Bank to expand how it supervises emerging technology.
Regulated firms are expected to keep AML systems aligned with new technological threats, including sanctions evasion and fraud. The Central Bank is tasked with developing a more systematic understanding of technologies such as artificial intelligence, communicating expectations around governance and controls, and incorporating technology more deeply into regulatory supervision.
Crypto also appears outside the financial sector itself. Ireland plans an industry standard governing the acceptance of crypto-related activity as a source of funds in gambling, with enhanced due diligence intended to establish whether those funds are legitimate.
The strategy is therefore broader than exchange regulation. Authorities are increasingly concerned with how crypto-derived wealth enters banks, gambling businesses and other parts of the conventional economy.
What changes next for crypto firms in Ireland
The regulatory pressure will build over several years rather than through one immediate prohibition.
Ireland’s strategy runs through 2030, while the country is also preparing for a FATF Mutual Evaluation in 2028. The government plans annual reviews of risk-based supervision so that resources and enforcement intensity continue to reflect emerging threats.
That creates a clear benchmark for CASPs. Firms will need to demonstrate not simply that they have formal AML policies, but that those systems can identify cross-border flows, satisfy Travel Rule requirements, manage sanctions exposure and adapt to products such as DeFi and privacy-enhancing technologies.
One constraint may prove harder to solve through regulation alone: specialist staffing. Ireland’s own risk assessment acknowledges that CASPs face difficulty recruiting compliance professionals who understand both blockchain technology and AML obligations. For Dublin’s growing crypto sector, that makes experienced blockchain compliance talent part of the regulatory bottleneck, not simply another operating cost.
The most important next developments will be Ireland’s completion of the EU AML and Transfer of Funds implementation work, followed by how the Central Bank converts the Very Significant crypto risk assessment into actual supervisory expectations before the 2028 FATF review.
The information presented in this article is intended for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as financial, investment, or trading advice. Coinspress.com does not promote or advocate for any particular investment strategy, asset, or cryptocurrency project. Cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile and unpredictable – always perform your own research and seek guidance from a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Alexander Stefanov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
