Polish Sejm approves tough law on crypto assets

Главное:

• The Polish parliament has approved a law on cryptocurrencies.
• The new law has been criticized for over-regulating the market.
• Industry representatives warn that the new rules and high costs will lead to an outflow of crypto businesses.

The Polish Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, has passed a new law on crypto asset markets. The document is intended to transpose the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) rules into national law. However, the crypto community criticizes the law for attempting to over-regulate the country’s crypto industry, stifling innovation, and threatening to shut down domestic companies working with digital assets.

The bill was passed by 230 members of the Chamber, with 196 voting against it and no abstentions. The crypto asset law will now be sent to the Senate, the upper house of the Polish parliament.

Features of the law

According to the Polish news agency PAP, the bill aims to protect customers and other market participants from so-called “dishonest entities.” It defines the responsibilities of accredited platforms and introduces criminal liability for unlicensed crypto services and the issuance of digital tokens.

The Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) will be empowered to supervise this sector and record violations and fraud. The bill regulates the activities of online cryptocurrency exchanges: they will be required to create individual customer accounts, which should protect users’ funds.

Violators face fines of up to 10 million Polish złoty ($120 000) or imprisonment for up to two years.

Negative reaction from the community

The law has been criticized by crypto entrepreneurs and the parliamentary opposition. Although the transposition of MiCA into national law seems quite natural, this cryptocurrency law is “a real horror” for crypto entrepreneurs, wrote the crypto publication Bitcoin.pl. Noting some of the powers granted to the country’s financial regulator, the Polish portal commented:

“The crypto assets law gives the KNF permissions that resemble a repression apparatus rather than market supervision.”

According to the crypto community, the “clear guidelines” provided by the new law are nothing more than restrictions and costly requirements that will destroy innovation.

Earlier this month, the Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW) listed the first-ever cryptocurrency bitcoin ETF — Bitcoin BETA-ETF.