Poland’s parliament, the Sejm, has yet to pass a domestic enabling act for the EU’s regulations on cryptocurrencies.
The parliament has again failed to override a presidential veto on a key crypto regulation bill. President Karol Nawrocki defended his veto, citing concerns over excessive regulation that could harm small businesses. Opponents state that the lack of framework makes the Polish market vulnerable to fraud and free-for-all for illicit actors. The political path forward is unclear.
Outside the political arena, the reality is that Poland is the only EU member state left to implement the bloc’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework. The deadline for the transitionary period ends on July 1.
This already makes it difficult for local firms to stay competitive in Europe. But after July 1, if a solution isn’t forthcoming, it will be impossible. Some are already taking their business elsewhere and moving abroad.
Crypto industry, Polish president claim bill is burdensome
In November 2025, the Sejm passed the Crypto-Asset Market Act, which would update Polish law to comply with MiCA.
Local enterprise groups were not pleased with the result. In an October letter, the Warsaw Enterprise Institute, a business-focused think tank, outlined a few of the perceived problems with the law.
First was the length. Including draft secondary regulations, the total length was well over 300 pages. The Warsaw Enterprise Institute said that, while other EU member states were satisfied with just a few dozen pages, “the Polish law has several hundred articles and provides for additional regulations.”
It said the act introduces “a ban on marketing activities related to basic cryptocurrencies and the possibility of blocking websites by administrative decision, without the right to appeal to a court.”
“Such solutions are not justified by MiCA and put Polish companies in a worse competitive position compared to entities operating in other EU countries.”.
Of further concern was the role the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) would play under the new regime. Under the law, the KNF would be the sole regulator of the entire crypto market. It would have the power to levy heavy fines as well as maintain and enforce a blacklist of “unreliable” crypto domains that Polish ISPs would have to block.
Not only would the KNF be incredibly powerful, but it is already notoriously slow. According to a payment institution peer review by the European Banking Authority, the KNF’s authorization times were the slowest in Europe. In an October letter, the Warsaw Enterprise Institute claimed that the KNF has only issued two licenses for brokerage houses in the last 10 years. In the same time period, it has only issued one electronic money institution license, while Lithuania has registered over 100.
Related: EU crypto firms turn to legal support as deadline for MiCA compliance nears
On Dec. 1, 2025, Nawrocki vetoed the law, citing bloated regulation. The government failed to override the veto, and then reintroduced the exact same bill. Nawrocki vetoed the bill for a second time in February, and on April 17, the Sejm repeated itself in failing to overrule the veto.
Polish parliament struggles to find path forward for MiCA
The battle over the crypto bill shows no signs of stopping.
Firstly, for Nawrocki, passing the bill after being reintroduced in the same form would have presented a political problem.
Piech told Cointelegraph, “Once the president had already argued that the bill breached constitutional principles and contained excessive, disproportionate and vague provisions […] signing a near-identical version would have meant contradicting his own stated reasoning.”
“In that sense, the second push looked less like compromise and more like an attempt to pressure the president into a constitutional U-turn.”
Some in the crypto industry hailed the veto as Nawrocki sticking to his pro-crypto, sound regulatory principles.
“The veto is not anti-regulatory, it brings common sense back into the law-making process. […] The industry did not ask for privileges. It asked for proportionality,” said Sławomir Zawadzki, co-CEO of Kanga Exchange.
Different coalitions and groups have attempted to introduce their own versions. According to Piech, Finance Minister Andrzej Domański said that the government started work yesterday on solutions for a new crypto-asset bill.
In December, after the first veto, the Polska 2050 political party announced “an improved draft that is a step forward from the President’s arguments, which, although far-fetched, are perhaps worth considering.”
Nawrocki himself has said he would submit a draft but the speaker in the Sejm has blocked the introduction of presidential proposals.
The Confederation of Liberty and Independence and the Law and Justice have filed versions, while another political coalition, the Center Club, announced it would prepare…
cointelegraph.com