Crypto-fascism<\/p>\n
In reality, the connections between Zondacrypto and parts of the Polish right were visible long before the platform\u2019s spectacular collapse.<\/p>\n
In May 2025, the company co-sponsored Poland\u2019s edition of the US Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, where speakers included President Andrzej Duda and then-candidate Nawrocki. Alongside were prominent American conservatives including Kristi Noem, who publicly endorsed Nawrocki as Donald Trump\u2019s preferred candidate. The following day, Nawrocki vowed not to regulate cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoland needs innovation, not regulation,\u201d he said<\/a> on Facebook. \u201cAs president, I will guarantee that draconian laws restricting your freedom will not come into force.\u201d<\/p>\n Zondacrypto also sponsored events surrounding Nawrocki\u2019s first visit to the White House in 2025, including a Polish-American business summit organised by the right-wing broadcaster Telewizja Republika.<\/p>\n On December 1, cryptocurrency became a new front in the conflict between Nawrocki and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, when the president vetoed a government bill expanding state oversight of the crypto market and authorities\u2019 powers to intervene in suspicious transactions.<\/p>\n In his formal veto submission<\/a>, Nawrocki argued that the legislation went beyond what EU regulations actually required, imposing fees and administrative obligations \u201cnot found in other EU member states\u201d that would make Poland\u2019s crypto market one of the most restrictive in the bloc. The bill, he said, would discourage innovation and push businesses toward more permissive jurisdictions.<\/p>\n The second version of the bill met the same fate in February \u2013 shortly before Zondacrypto began collapsing.<\/p>\n For Mateusz Mazzini, political journalist at Gazeta Wyborcza, the veto reflected less a coherent position on cryptocurrency regulation than Nawrocki\u2019s broader political instincts. \u201cHis default position is to block almost everything put forward by the government,\u201d he tells BIRN. \u201cSometimes he does so for ideological reasons, as was the case with SAFE, and sometimes simply because the proposal comes from the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n On crypto specifically, Mazzini argues, Nawrocki appears largely indifferent to the substance of the issue, making him susceptible to pressure from allies with stronger interests in keeping the sector unregulated.<\/p>\n \u201cIf regulating crypto is fundamentally irrelevant to him, but someone in his political environment treats it as a matter of political survival, then naturally he will be pushed in that direction,\u201d Mazzini says.<\/p>\n In early April, Tusk publicly disclosed<\/a> that a month before the first parliamentary vote to overcome the president\u2019s veto, Zondacrypto\u2019s CEO Kral made large payments to organisations linked to right-wing politicians, including nearly half a million zlotys (roughly 100,000 euros) to the Sovereign Poland Institute of former justice minister and now exiled Law and Justice (PiS) politician Zbigniew Ziobro \u2013 a claim the foundation later confirmed<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s no secret that certain political forces in Poland \u2013 parts of [far-right] Confederation, but also Ziobro\u2019s camp \u2013 had very strong ties to the crypto market,\u201d Mazzini says.<\/p>\n For companies like Zondacrypto, he argues, proximity to politics offered a practical benefit above all else. \u201cIt gave them a lack of regulation and the possibility of bringing in capital that otherwise would not be allowed in,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crypto-fascism In reality, the connections between Zondacrypto and parts of the Polish right were visible long before the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5244,64,1087,1344,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-6218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-poland","8":"tag-cryptocurrencies","9":"tag-donald-tusk","10":"tag-far-right","11":"tag-nawrocki","12":"tag-poland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}