Poland’s parliament upheld President Karol Nawrocki’s veto of a digital asset bill aimed at bringing the country in line with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, making Poland the only country in the bloc that remains without such legislation.
As reported by Bloomberg, the vote on the ‘Crypto-Asset Market Act,’ introduced in June by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government, fell 18 votes short of the three-fifths majority required to overturn President Karol Nawrocki’s veto.
The bill was intended to align Poland with the EU’s MiCA framework for digital asset markets, with Tusk’s Civic Coalition government arguing that the measure was necessary to protect consumers and ensure that Poland benefits from the market.
“There’s no doubt that this market is highly susceptible to exploitation by foreign services, intelligence agencies, and mafias,” Tusk told parliament. “The challenge is for the state to provide the tools to ensure it’s not helpless.”
He added that the bill would give Polish authorities “tools to control a new market, which is not regulated, where the Russian services, Russian mafia and money laundering are present.”
However, President Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing populist opposition party, vetoed the bill on December 1, on the basis that it poses “a real threat to the freedoms of Poles and the stability of the state.”
This is in keeping with promises made by Nawrocki during his 2025 presidential campaign, when he emphasized that he would not allow freedom-restricting regulations concerning investment in modern assets.
Other critics of the bill argued that it imposed too stringent licensing rules, high compliance costs, and criminal-liability provisions for service-provider executives, as well as posing the risk of stifling innovation and creating an “uncompetitive business environment.”
Nawrocki’s Chief of Staff Zbigniew Bogucki said on Friday that the president is open to regulating the sector, provided the new rules aren’t overly restrictive.
“To stand on this podium and say, ‘Either you vote for the Russian mafia or you vote for my bill’ is to give a false choice and you know it perfectly well,” said Bogucki.
He called on the government to work together with the presidential palace on drafting new legislation, with the failure to overturn the veto forcing Tusk’s coalition government to now restart the legislative process.
The bill’s failure also means that Poland is now the only hold-out of the 27-nation EU bloc to not pass MiCA-compliant legislation, leaving domestic digital asset companies in limbo.
This will be a blow to an industry that has seen significant growth over the past few years in Poland. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis recently recorded a 51% growth in crypto adoption in Poland in 2025, where “grassroots adoption and remittance flows continue to fuel market expansion.”
Meanwhile, blockchain intelligence and risk management firm TRM Labs placed Poland 50th in the world in crypto adoption in 2025.
Polish users and businesses in the sector will be hoping to see a bill pass that aligns the country with MiCA, sooner rather than later, if they are to continue to grow and see the benefits that the landmark EU legislation provides, not least the ‘passporting’ rule, whereby a MiCA license issued in one EU country allows a firm to operate freely across the entire bloc.
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Source: https://coingeek.com/poland-fails-to-overturn-president-veto-of-mica-compliant-bill/
