Poland’s parliament, the Sejm, has but to move a home enabling act for the EU’s rules on cryptocurrencies.
The parliament has once more did not override a presidential veto on a key crypto regulation invoice. President Karol Nawrocki defended his veto, citing considerations over extreme regulation that would hurt small companies. Opponents state that the dearth of framework makes the Polish market susceptible to fraud and free-for-all for illicit actors. The political path ahead is unclear.
Outdoors the political enviornment, the fact is that Poland is the one EU member state left to implement the bloc’s Markets in Crypto-Property (MiCA) regulatory framework. The deadline for the transitionary interval ends on July 1.
This already makes it tough for native corporations to remain aggressive in Europe. However after July 1, if an answer isn’t forthcoming, it will likely be inconceivable. Some are already taking their enterprise elsewhere and transferring overseas.
Crypto trade, Polish president declare invoice is burdensome
In November 2025, the Sejm handed the Crypto-Asset Market Act, which might replace Polish regulation to adjust to MiCA.
Native enterprise teams weren’t happy with the consequence. In an October letter, the Warsaw Enterprise Institute, a business-focused assume tank, outlined just a few of the perceived issues with the regulation.
First was the size. Together with draft secondary rules, the entire size was effectively over 300 pages. The Warsaw Enterprise Institute stated that, whereas different EU member states have been glad with just some dozen pages, “the Polish regulation has a number of hundred articles and supplies for extra rules.”
It stated the act introduces “a ban on advertising and marketing actions associated to primary cryptocurrencies and the potential of blocking web sites by administrative choice, with out the precise to enchantment to a courtroom.”
“Such options usually are not justified by MiCA and put Polish corporations in a worse aggressive place in comparison with entities working in different EU international locations.”.
Of additional concern was the position the Polish Monetary Supervision Authority (KNF) would play underneath the brand new regime. Below the regulation, the KNF could be the only regulator of all the crypto market. It will have the facility to levy heavy fines in addition to preserve and implement a blacklist of “unreliable” crypto domains that Polish ISPs must block.
Not solely would the KNF be extremely highly effective, however it’s already notoriously sluggish. In response to a fee establishment peer overview by the European Banking Authority, the KNF’s authorization occasions have been the slowest in Europe. In an October letter, the Warsaw Enterprise Institute claimed that the KNF has solely issued two licenses for brokerage homes within the final 10 years. In the identical time interval, it has solely issued one digital cash establishment license, whereas Lithuania has registered over 100.
Associated: EU crypto corporations flip to authorized assist as deadline for MiCA compliance nears
On Dec. 1, 2025, Nawrocki vetoed the regulation, citing bloated regulation. The federal government did not override the veto, after which reintroduced the very same invoice. Nawrocki vetoed the invoice for a second time in February, and on April 17, the Sejm repeated itself in failing to overrule the veto.
Polish parliament struggles to seek out path ahead for MiCA
The battle over the crypto invoice reveals no indicators of stopping.
Firstly, for Nawrocki, passing the invoice after being reintroduced in the identical type would have introduced a political downside.
Piech instructed Cointelegraph, “As soon as the president had already argued that the invoice breached constitutional rules and contained extreme, disproportionate and imprecise provisions […] signing a near-identical model would have meant contradicting his personal acknowledged reasoning.”
“In that sense, the second push appeared much less like compromise and extra like an try and strain the president right into a constitutional U-turn.”
Some within the crypto trade hailed the veto as Nawrocki sticking to his pro-crypto, sound regulatory rules.
“The veto shouldn’t be anti-regulatory, it brings widespread sense again into the law-making course of. […] The trade didn’t ask for privileges. It requested for proportionality,” stated Sławomir Zawadzki, co-CEO of Kanga Change.
Completely different coalitions and teams have tried to introduce their very own variations. In response to Piech, Finance Minister Andrzej Domański stated that the federal government began work yesterday on options for a brand new crypto-asset invoice.
In December, after the primary veto, the Polska 2050 political celebration introduced “an improved draft that may be a step ahead from the President’s arguments, which, though far-fetched, are maybe value contemplating.”
Nawrocki himself has stated he would submit a draft however the speaker within the Sejm has blocked the introduction of presidential proposals.
The Confederation of Liberty and Independence and the Regulation and Justice have filed variations, whereas one other political coalition, the Middle Membership, introduced it could put together one other draft.
Total, Poland’s political class is “nonetheless deeply cut up on crypto.”
“That is now not only a technical argument about implementing MiCA. It has turn into a broader combat over whether or not crypto needs to be introduced into a standard authorized framework, or handled as a politically suspicious sector that may be overregulated, stigmatised or used as a proxy battlefield after the Zonda Crypto controversy,” he stated.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, himself a member of the Civic Coalition, has accused native alternate Zonda Crypto of illicit funding and ties to Russian legal networks. It has undergone a funding disaster, pausing withdrawals, and has reportedly lobbied towards the invoice.
Associated: Zonda alternate says 4.5K BTC pockets inaccessible amid withdrawal disaster
Tusk additionally claimed that it “sponsors political and social occasions in Poland and promotes very particular political forces,” together with the opposition far-right Regulation and Justice celebration, of which Nawrocki is a member.
Zonda Crypto didn’t reply to Cointelegraph’s request for remark.
Polish crypto corporations look overseas
For corporations in Poland, passing a brand new regulation by the tip of the MiCA transitional interval on July 1 could also be a case of shutting the barn doorways after the horses have bolted.
Mentioned Piech, “A brand new regulation should still matter institutionally, particularly for banks and bigger monetary establishments that will wish to enter crypto as soon as there’s a clear authorized path. However for all current Polish crypto corporations, it’s already very late.”
Some home crypto corporations are already wanting overseas. Crypto alternate Kanga is contemplating a transfer to Latvia, “a rustic whose representatives have overtly used conferences in Poland to draw crypto corporations, providing a MiCA-friendly regime, sooner procedures and comparatively low supervisory charges,” per Piech.
Robert Wojciechowski, president of the Polish Chamber of Commerce for Blockchain and New Applied sciences, stated, “Since we based the chamber, about 70-80 % of corporations have sailed overseas. Now my colleagues say they’re speaking to the Czech Republic to maneuver their enterprise there.”
The Chancellery of the President has itself raised the alarm, stating that, “Overregulation is a assured approach to push corporations overseas — to the Czech Republic, Lithuania or Malta — as a substitute of making situations for them to function and pay taxes in Poland.”
Zonda Crypto CEO Przemysław Kral has beforehand instructed Cointelegraph, “Though we’re an organization with Polish roots and the biggest participant within the crypto trade on the Polish market, now we have been working outdoors Poland for years.”
“We’re assured that we are going to stay a key participant available on the market. Nonetheless, many small Polish crypto corporations will lose the chance to function available on the market,” he stated.
Now it’s a race towards the clock, as July 1 attracts nearer. Piech doesn’t see a “reasonable likelihood” for a invoice to move, and if it doesn’t, “home corporations with no functioning Polish route are left at a structural drawback.”
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