Poland’s president has blocked a sweeping set of rules for the country’s crypto sector, dealing a blow to the government’s push for tighter oversight.
Key Takeaways:
- Polish President Karol Nawrocki vetoed a sweeping crypto law, saying it threatens property rights and personal freedoms.
- The blocked bill would have imposed strict oversight, including powers to block crypto websites.
- The decision has renewed debate over whether regulation protects users or pushes firms abroad.
Karol Nawrocki vetoed the Crypto-Asset Market Act on Monday, arguing that its provisions “genuinely threaten the freedoms of Poles, their property, and the stability of the state,” according to a statement from the presidential office.
The move immediately split opinion in Warsaw, with crypto supporters applauding the decision and senior officials accusing the president of opening the door to disorder.
Government Pushes Tough Oversight for Poland’s Crypto Market
Introduced in June, the bill sought to place Poland’s digital-asset industry under strict supervisory control.
Supporters inside government said the measures were needed to protect consumers from fraud and abusive practices.
However, critics, including opposition lawmaker Tomasz Mentzen, had predicted that the president would refuse to sign it after it cleared parliament, describing the draft as a blunt instrument that punished legitimate firms alongside bad actors.
The president’s office highlighted several flashpoints. One was a clause that would give authorities wide powers to block websites linked to crypto activity.
“Domain-blocking laws are opaque and can lead to abuse,” the statement said, warning that such tools risk being used beyond their original purpose.
Nawrocki added that the legislation was so dense that it undermined transparency, particularly when set against leaner frameworks in neighboring Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary.
Overly tight rules, he added, would simply drive companies, and tax revenues, to more welcoming jurisdictions such as Lithuania and Malta.
The president also pointed to high oversight fees baked into the bill, arguing they would deter startups while favoring large foreign firms and banks.
“This is a reversal of logic, killing off a competitive market and a serious threat to innovation,” he said.
Polish Ministers Slam President’s Crypto Veto
Meanwhile, members of the government moved quickly to condemn the veto.
Finance Minister Andrzej Domański accused the president of having “chosen chaos,” while Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski warned that the absence of new controls would leave savers exposed if markets turn.
Crypto advocates pushed back, saying the blame for scams and losses rests with enforcement failures, not with the rejection of a single statute.
Economist Krzysztof Piech argued that Poland is not operating in a regulatory vacuum, noting that the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets law will bring union-wide investor safeguards from July 2026.
In October, Sławomir Cenckiewicz, head of Poland’s National Security Bureau, said Russia is using cryptocurrencies to pay saboteurs carrying out hybrid attacks across the European Union.
The method, he said, allows Moscow to conceal financial flows and evade detection by Western intelligence services.
Cenckiewicz said the FT that Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, has been using crypto to finance operations ranging from sabotage to cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.
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