TechFlow News, May 12: According to The Block, Włodzimierz Czarzasty, Speaker of the Polish Sejm (lower house of parliament), announced that the Sejm has officially begun debating four competing cryptocurrency bills—submitted respectively by the government, President Karol Nawrocki, the Poland 2050 party, and the Coalition Party. The second reading is scheduled for this Thursday. Previously, President Nawrocki had vetoed related cryptocurrency legislation twice. The main point of contention between the government’s and the president’s proposals concerns the account-freezing authority of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) and the upper limit on fines: the president’s proposal maintains the maximum fine at 20 million PLN (approximately $5.5 million), while the Ministry of Finance’s draft raises it to 25 million PLN (approximately $6.9 million).
Meanwhile, lawmakers from the Law and Justice Party (PiS) withdrew their market-regulation bill—originally submitted in April—on Monday and instead introduced a new proposal that would comprehensively ban all cryptocurrency activities within Poland. Speaker Czarzasty stated that the ban proposal will only enter the legislative process after the four primary regulatory bills have been reviewed. He also raised questions regarding financial ties between the cryptocurrency exchange ZondaCrypto and Polish politicians, and probed the underlying motives behind President Nawrocki’s two vetoes of the legislation.
