For much of the past decade, Poland’s cryptocurrency market developed with limited supervision, according to an analysis by state news agency PAP.
Regulators repeatedly warned about fraud, money laundering, cybercrime and extreme price volatility, but broader oversight remained weak.
The National Bank of Poland (NBP) and the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) launched a public warning campaign in 2017, cautioning that cryptocurrencies were not covered by the guarantees protecting conventional bank deposits and could be vulnerable to theft and sudden losses.
Poland introduced its first legal definition of virtual currency in 2018 as part of anti-money-laundering legislation.
Tax rules followed in 2019, but the sector still lacked the kind of supervision applied to traditional financial markets.
The European Union later adopted the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation (MiCA) to introduce common rules across the bloc. It covers the issue and sale of crypto-assets, exchange services, investment advice and the custody of customers’ assets.
Member states were required to implement the regulation by July 1, 2026. In Poland, its provisions were to be introduced through a government bill regulating the crypto-asset market.
The legislation would place the sector under the supervision of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority and give the regulator powers to license, inspect and sanction companies operating in the market.
The measure has instead become the subject of a prolonged dispute between parliament and President Karol Nawrocki.
The Polish lower house first passed the legislation in November last year, but the president vetoed it in December.
Parliament passed another version, which he also rejected.
On June 11, Nawrocki vetoed the legislation for a third time.
The issue has gained new urgency because of the investigation into Zondacrypto, one of Poland’s best-known cryptocurrency exchanges.
The District Prosecutor’s Office in the southern city of Katowice opened an investigation on April 17 into suspected large-scale fraud and money laundering. Several thousand reports of suspected crimes have since been filed.
Police and officers from the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) detained three people on Wednesday.
Investigators also secured documents at the Warsaw headquarters of the Polish Olympic Committee (PKOl) and the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK).
Polish Olympic Committee head Radosław Piesiewicz was also detained last week.
Prosecutors charged him with influence peddling and with favouring some Zondacrypto creditors at the expense of others while the company was facing possible insolvency.
Piesiewicz has pleaded not guilty. A court approved a prosecution request to hold him in pre-trial detention for three months.
The case has drawn additional attention because Zondacrypto became the Polish Olympic Committee's general sponsor in October last year.
The deal later ran into financial problems. In April, Piesiewicz said the committee would terminate the agreement unless another payment arrived by the end of the month.
On April 30, the committee decided to end the sponsorship and remove the company’s neon sign from its Warsaw headquarters.
Zondacrypto traces its origins to BitBay, a cryptocurrency exchange founded in Poland in 2014.
Cryptocurrencies are digitally traded assets whose value is not guaranteed by a central bank or other public authority.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk asked lower-house Speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty to put the latest presidential veto to a vote, but lawmakers failed to muster the majority to override it on Friday.
Tusk said the Zondacrypto case was "taking on a form that is genuinely alarming" and argued that there could no longer be any doubt that Poland needed legislation regulating the market.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP, TVP Info