Poland's Prime Minister Accuses Zondacrypto of Influencing Legislation Amid Financial Woes

The troubles facing Polish cryptocurrency exchange Zondacrypto continue to escalate. Following reports of frozen or delayed customer withdrawals, the company has come under fire from Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who alleged that Zondacrypto sponsored politicians who opposed crypto market regulation. Tusk claimed that these politicians were acting in the exchange's interests when they blocked the legislation. The exchange has ties to Russia and had previously provided financial support to the lawmakers. Tusk's comments came after Zondacrypto's CEO, Przemysław Kral, attempted to address allegations that the company was using investors' funds to bolster its dwindling reserves. Kral revealed that the exchange owns a bitcoin wallet containing approximately 4,500 BTC, valued at around $330 million, but cannot access the funds due to a missing private key. The key was not handed over by the former CEO, Sylwester Suszek, in 2021, and Suszek has been missing for four years. Zondacrypto has been facing issues with delayed customer withdrawals since late March, according to local news reports. Kral denied any misuse of client funds and stated that the exchange remains profitable. He made the wallet address public to demonstrate that the exchange has reserves. Kral attributed the situation to a broader campaign against the company, citing political pressure, regulatory interference, and coordinated media coverage, which led to a surge in withdrawal requests. An analysis by blockchain intelligence firm Recoveris found that bitcoin balances in hot wallets linked to Zonda have decreased by about 99% since mid-2024. The controversy surrounding Zondacrypto is long-standing. In 2024, Polish investigative reporting identified a shareholder with a criminal record, and in 2019, Poland's Financial Supervision Authority placed BitBay, the exchange's former name, on its public warning list for unauthorized financial activities. In January 2025, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection started an investigation into BB Trade Estonia, Zonda's owner, for violating consumer interests. Kral previously stated that reports of declining reserves were due to an analytical error and that the platform was stable and secure. He attributed withdrawal delays to an unusually high volume of requests and the implementation of new security systems, which required manual verifications. Onchain data shows little recent activity on the wallet presented as proof of reserves, with no outgoing transactions and only 32 receiving transactions. The veto vote on the crypto market regulation law saw 191 MPs vote in favor of the veto and 243 against it, falling short of the required number to overturn the block.