Despite the lack of proper cryptocurrency regulation in Poland, customers of troubled digital asset exchange Zondacrypt may be entitled to financial compensation from the state.
Local media highlighted this option with reports that traders lost access to at least 350 million złoty worth of funds on the platform, with withdrawals restricted due to solvency issues.
Poland begins investigation into Zonda accident
Polish law enforcement authorities are currently investigating the case of ZondaCrypto, a major exchange in the domestic market that stopped processing customer transactions due to liquidity issues.
Prosecutors announced this week that they had identified hundreds of potential victims whose losses could exceed 350 million zlotys (more than $95 million). A spokesperson for the public prosecutor’s office said:
“We’re talking about hundreds of people now, and this number continues to grow…The scale of the potential for fraud is enormous.”
The news comes amid growing complaints from users unable to access their stock holdings, concerned about revelations about Zonda’s financial health, employee layoffs and executive resignations.
Concerns about the company’s solvency began to grow in early April, when an analysis conducted by market intelligence firm Recoveris found that the platform had lost more than 99% of its reserves.
While rejecting media reports citing this investigation and maintaining the stability of the exchange, company CEO Przemysław Kral admitted that the company does not have access to a 4,500 BTC wallet.
The CEO said that the company’s missing founder, Sylvester Suchek, never handed over the keys to his wallet, which contained $330 million worth of Bitcoin at the time of the announcement.
Suchek founded a cryptocurrency company as BitBay in 2014, the portal Notes from Poland recalled in a report on Tuesday.
The company was sold to US investors and rebranded to Zondacrypto in 2021, with management transferred to Kral and expanded through aggressive advertising and sponsorships in the sports sector.
Suzek disappeared in March of the following year. Founded in Poland, Zonda currently operates under an Estonian license.
Zonda shuts down due to layoffs and resignations
ZondaCrypto has not yet officially declared bankruptcy, but the termination agreement sent to employees cites “complete liquidation” as the reason for their release, Bankier.pl revealed on Wednesday.
Documents seen by other Polish media outlets, including financial news website Money.pl, also show that the cryptocurrency company has ceased operations.
All members of the supervisory board of BB Trade Estonia, which operates the platform, resigned last week. Following their resignations, the head of compliance and cybersecurity also resigned.
The exchange is in shambles, according to fired employees contacted by news outlets. Some of their accounts suggest that the debt to customers could ultimately exceed 500 million zlotys.
Meanwhile, some media reported that Zonda’s CEO may also have disappeared. Krall has not publicly commented on the fate of the company he ran since mid-April.
Zondacrypto users may apply for compensation, experts say
According to one estimate, around 30,000 customers may have been affected by the collapse of Poland’s leading cryptocurrency exchange amid fraud allegations.
Although Poland does not yet comprehensively regulate the digital asset market, provisions in Poland’s current law allow customers to seek compensation for losses from the state.
“There will be lawsuits – against the company itself and members of its governing body, but also here is where things get very interesting – against the Treasury,” the lawyer told Bankier.pl.
Legal expert Jan Ziomek says these can be filed in both Poland and Estonia, and his clients have strong grounds for such claims.
He advised users to collect all available data, including balance checks, transaction history, and interactions with customer service.
Polish politicians, mainly those in Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ruling centre-left coalition, are trying to attribute their losses to the absence of a crypto-specific law.
Cryptopolitan reported that a government-proposed bill aimed at implementing the EU’s MiCA regulation was rejected twice by President Karol Nawrocki, who also failed to override his veto last week.
