Crypto Industry Watches As Poland Advances Long-Delayed Regulatory Bill

Poland’s prime minister has tied the country’s repeated failure to pass crypto rules to a high-profile fraud case — a charge that added urgency to a parliamentary vote that had already failed twice before.

A Scandal Shapes The Debate

Prime Minister Donald Tusk pointed to Zondacrypto, a Polish crypto exchange now under a prosecutor’s fraud probe, as evidence of what happens when investor protections are not in place.

Thousands of the exchange’s users reportedly could not access their funds, and Tusk alleged the platform had ties to Russian capital and influence dating to its early years.

He argued that Poland’s inability to finalize a regulatory framework had slowed any official response to the crisis.

The exchange scandal cast a long shadow over this week’s sitting of the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, where lawmakers debated four separate crypto bills simultaneously.

On Friday, they approved the government-backed bill — numbered 2529 and supported by the Ministry of Finance — by a vote of 241 to 200. It was the third time the government had pushed this kind of legislation through parliament after President Karol Nawrocki vetoed two earlier versions.

The approved bill hands broad authority to Poland’s Financial Supervision Authority, known as the KNF, to monitor crypto market participants, impose administrative penalties, and block accounts and transactions when deemed necessary.

Critics Point To Unchanged Provisions

Not everyone in the crypto community welcomed the outcome. Market participants and commentators noted that the account and transaction blocking provisions — the same ones that prompted Nawrocki’s previous vetoes — remained largely intact in the final text. Proposed changes such as stronger judicial oversight of enforcement actions were not included.

With those concerns unresolved, many observers expect the president to veto the bill again. That prospect worries industry players, since a third rejection would deepen regulatory uncertainty at a particularly inconvenient time.

Poland is required to bring its rules in line with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, known as MiCA, with implementation deadlines approaching in July.

The vote came after lawmakers reviewed competing proposals from four separate sources: the government, the president, the Confederation party, and a parliamentary group. A committee merged the texts before the final vote, and the government version ultimately prevailed.

Featured image from Hotels.com, chart from TradingView