Polish cryptocurrency exchange Zondacrypto’s problems just keep mounting.
Already under fire following reports of frozen or delayed customer withdrawals, the company drew the ire of Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Friday, who told parliament that the company had sponsored some politicians opposed to regulation of the crypto market.
Blocking the legislation by some politicians showed they were toeing Zondacrypto’s line, Tusk said before a vote to overturn President Karol Nawrocki’s veto of the law, according to an AP report. The exchange has ties to Russia and had previously given lawmakers financial support, he said.
Tusk’s comments came a day after Zondacrypto CEO Przemysław Kral approached X to refute claims that the company was helping itself with investors’ funds to shore up its dwindling reserves.
In a statement and video published on the platform, Kral said the exchange had sufficient reserves and owns a bitcoin wallet with about 4,500 BTC, about $330 million. There’s a problem though: it can’t access the funds because the previous owner didn’t hand over the private key and has now disappeared.
Delayed withdrawals
Kral said he disclosed the wallet’s address to “shortcut the baseless allegations of alleged misappropriation of funds.” The key was not handed over by former CEO Sylwester Suszek in 2021, when ownership of the exchange, then known as BitBay, was transferred and Kral took over. Suszek has been missing for four years.
Zondacrypto has faced reports of frozen or delayed customer withdrawals since late March, according to local news reports. Kral denied any misuse of client funds and said the exchange remains profitable. He published the inaccessible wallet to prove that the exchange has reserves, he said.
Kral framed the situation as part of a broader campaign against the company, according to an AI translation of his Polish video. He pointed to suspected political pressure, regulatory interference and coordinated media coverage as contributing to a surge in withdrawal requests.
Analysis conducted by blockchain intelligence firm Recoveris and cited by local news media showed that bitcoin balances in hot wallets linked to Zonda have fallen by around 99% since mid-2024. At one point, Kral threatened legal action against Polish news media that covered the situation.
The breed is rekindling the long-standing controversy surrounding the company.
Polish investigative report, led by television station TVN, in 2024 identified shareholder Marek K., who held a 35% stake, as a criminal sentenced to eight years in prison for complicity in a gang murder in 1995 and fined 45 million zlotys ($12.5 million) for VAT fraud.
In 2019, Poland’s Financial Supervisory Authority (KNF) placed BitBay on its public warning list for unauthorized financial activities.
In January 2025, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, Poland’s consumer protection agency, started an investigation — still ongoing — of BB Trade Estonia, Zonda’s owner, for “violation of consumers’ collective interests,” Fakt reported earlier this month.
“Fundamental Error”
In an April 6 post on X, Kral said reports of the reported drop in reserves stemmed from a “fundamental analytical error” in focusing solely on hot wallets. At the time, Zonda stood as a “stable, solvent and safe device.”
Regarding withdrawal delays, he said at one point the platform was processing tens of thousands of requests in a short period of time, well above normal levels. That, plus “the implementation of new, advanced security and transaction monitoring systems,” forced manual withdrawal verifications.
The wallet, which was presented as proof of reserves by customer demand, has seen little activity recently. Onchain data shows no outgoing movements at all, and a total of 32 receiving transactions.
As for the veto vote, 191 MPs voted for Nawrocki’s veto and 243 against it, 20 seats short of overturning the bloc, TVP World reported.
