Business

Zondacrypto has 4,500 bitcoins. “The missing Sylwester Suszek has the keys to them”

The Zondacrypto exchange has a portfolio of 4.5 thousand. bitcoins worth over USD 300 million, but the keys to them are held by the missing Sylwester Suszek, founder of the BitBay exchange – announced the president of Zondacrypto, Przemysław Kral, on Thursday. He added that he wanted Suszek to be found.

Zondacrypto has 4,500 bitcoins. "The missing Sylwester Suszek has the keys to them"
/ Own materials

Sylwester Suszek is the founder and long-time president of the BitBay exchange, whose successor – according to media reports – Zondacrypto. Suszek went missing in 2022. The website money.pl reported on Easter Monday that Zondacrypto – the largest Polish cryptocurrency exchange – may have serious liquidity problems.

I have made the decision to make public the address of a wallet containing 4,500 bitcoins worth $330 million to put an end to baseless accusations of alleged misappropriation of funds.” – wrote Przemysław Kral on the X platform.

In his speech published on bitcoins. Kral added that the address had been verified by auditors.

– When Sylwester is supposed to hand over the private keys to this address in accordance with these documents, instead of doing so, he disappears. So for all those who claim (…) that I had anything to do with Sylwester's disappearance, this is the crowning argument that what I care most about is that Sylwester is found. Perhaps he is watching this, I appeal to him to fulfill the contract and to hand over the private keys to this address, Kral said.

The president of Zondacrypto pointed out that publications about the exchange in the media led to a sharp increase in the number of withdrawals ordered by clients of the exchange. As he noted, “under normal conditions” Zondacrypto clients ordered approximately 100,000 services annually. payments, meanwhile 25,000 were ordered on Easter Monday alone. – As many payments were ordered within several dozen minutes as would be ordered in three months. No financial institution could survive this, Kral said.

He added that Zondacrypto has never applied for a license in Poland, but has submitted such applications in Estonia and Cyprus.

What did the journalists of money.pl and Wirtualna Polska find out?

The analysis, obtained by money.pl and Wirtualna Polska, revealed a decline in bitcoin reserves of the Zondacrypto exchange by 99%. According to the portal, users report problems with the payment of funds, and at least some sports clubs sponsored by the stock exchange have not received due payments for months. The website indicated that at the same time, over PLN 76 million was paid from Zonda to another exchange.

In the article, the money.pl portal referred to analysts from Recoveris, a company dealing with, among others, recovering stolen cryptocurrencies. “The results of the analysis are surprising and disturbing. (…) Withdrawals of cryptocurrencies from Zonda, such as XRP or Ethereum, were carried out on an ongoing basis. The problems concerned withdrawals of bitcoins (BTC) – the most liquid and highest valued cryptocurrency. But on Sunday, it was not possible to withdraw money also in Ethereum,” the portal indicated.

After these reports, the president of the stock exchange, Przemysław Kral, declared in a statement sent to the media that “Zondacrypto is a stable, solvent and safe entity.” He announced that he would take “adequate legal steps” against the publishers of money.pl and Wirtualna Polska and the authors of Monday's publication. “As of April 1 this year, the balance of our reserves in Bitcoin alone was over 4.5 thousand BTC. We have full, over 100% coverage of all liabilities to our users,” said the president of Zondacrypto at that time. In the statement, he added data in the form of the volume of BTC deposits and withdrawals in 2025 and 2026.

Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk asked the Speaker of the Sejm to hold a vote on the president's veto to the bill on supervision over the crypto-asset market as soon as possible and called for the veto to be rejected. He also stated that the information provided to him by the Internal Security Agency shows that at the turn of October and November 2025, a month before the Sejm voted on the first presidential veto on the regulation of the cryptocurrency market, the president of the management board of the Zondacrypto cryptocurrency exchange, Przemysław Kral, made payments to two foundations associated with right-wing politicians.

On the same day, April 8, the National Prosecutor's Office announced on the X website that on the initiative of Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek, prosecutors will investigate information appearing in the media regarding irregularities in the operation of the Zondacrypto cryptocurrency exchange. According to the PK's statement, prosecutors will also examine the circumstances indicated in the money.pl article. “These activities will be carried out as part of the investigation conducted by the Silesian department of PZ PK into the disappearance of Sylwester Suszek, the founder of the BitBay exchange – the predecessor of Zondacrypto,” added PK.

In February, President Karol Nawrocki vetoed for the second time the act on the crypto-assets market, which introduced supervisory measures aimed at preventing violations, including: allowed the Polish Financial Supervision Authority to suspend the public offering of cryptocurrencies. Previously, an act with almost identical content was vetoed by the president in December last year; The Sejm did not manage to overturn the veto. The act vetoed in February differed from the previous one only in the amount of the maximum fee for supervision.

President Karol Nawrocki's veto of the act on the crypto-assets market is currently being considered by the Sejm. On Wednesday, the Sejm Finance and Economy Committees supported the adoption of the Act on the Crypto-Assets Market in its current wording. Therefore, they did not support President Karol Nawrocki's request to reconsider this act.

Sylwester Suszek, founder of the BitBay cryptocurrency exchange, disappeared in March 2022. He was 33 years old then. He was last seen at a fuel company in Czeladź, owned by Marian W. It was there that his mobile phone was last logged in. As the media described, on the day of his disappearance, the surveillance cameras at the fuel base stopped working for some time. Since his disappearance, Suszek's fate has been unknown. In the investigation into Suszek's disappearance, conducted by the Silesian department of the National Prosecutor's Office, Marian W. was charged with the deprivation of liberty of Sylwester Suszek. (PAP)

gkc/pad/mhr/



Ashley Davis

I’m Ashley Davis as an editor, I’m committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity and accuracy in every piece we publish. My work is driven by curiosity, a passion for truth, and a belief that journalism plays a crucial role in shaping public discourse. I strive to tell stories that not only inform but also inspire action and conversation.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button