The troubles facing Polish cryptocurrency exchange Zondacrypto continue to escalate. Following reports of customer withdrawals being frozen or delayed, the company has drawn criticism from Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who alleged that Zondacrypto sponsored politicians opposed to crypto market regulation. Tusk claimed that these politicians were acting in the exchange's interests by blocking legislation.
The exchange has ties to Russia and had previously provided financial support to lawmakers. Tusk's comments came after Zondacrypto's CEO, Przemysław Kral, attempted to address allegations that the company was using investor funds to replenish its dwindling reserves. Kral stated that the exchange has sufficient reserves and owns a bitcoin wallet containing approximately 4,500 BTC, valued at around $330 million.
However, the company is unable to access these funds because the previous owner, former CEO Sylwester Suszek, did not provide the private key and has since disappeared. Kral revealed the wallet address to counter allegations of misappropriating funds, stating that the key was not handed over during the ownership transfer in 2021. Suszek has been missing for four years.
Zondacrypto has faced issues with customer withdrawals since late March, prompting Kral to deny any misuse of client funds and assert that the exchange remains profitable. The situation has been framed as part of a broader campaign against the company, with Kral citing political pressure, regulatory interference, and coordinated media coverage contributing 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, with Polish investigative reporting in 2024 identifying a shareholder, Marek K., as a criminal convicted of complicity in a gangland murder and fined for VAT fraud. In 2019, Poland's Financial Supervision Authority placed BitBay, the company's former name, on its public warning list for unauthorized financial activities.
An investigation into BB Trade Estonia, Zonda's owner, for violating consumer interests is ongoing. Kral has attributed reports of declining reserves to a 'fundamental analytical error' focused solely on hot wallets, and stated that withdrawal delays were caused by an unusually high volume of requests and the implementation of new security systems. On-chain data shows little recent activity in the wallet presented as proof of reserves, with no outgoing transactions and only 32 receiving transactions.