The lack of a supervisory board may hamper Zondacrypto's licensing

The resignation of the entire supervisory board of BB Trade Estonia OU, an Estonian company related to the Zondacrypto brand, may complicate obtaining a new license required by EU MiCA regulations. When issuing it, the regulator evaluates not only financial documents, but also, among others, corporate governance or management stability.

Registered in the Estonian business register e-Aeriregister under the number 14814864, the company had a three-person supervisory board. On Sunday, all members of the supervisory board of BB Trade Estonia OU announced their resignation from their positions. In the published statement, they emphasized that each of them made the decision to leave the company independently.

On Monday, the Estonian register did not contain information about the appointment of a new supervisory board. This means that less than three months before the deadline for entering the new licensing regime, the company remains without a corporate supervision authority.

So far, the company has operated under the former Estonian license for virtual currency services No. FVT000209.

There is currently no information in Estonian registers that BB Trade Estonia OU has submitted an application or obtained a license necessary from July 1 – according to data from the Estonian financial supervision authority Finantsinspektsioon.

With the entry into force of the EU MiCA regulation, the activities of cryptocurrency exchanges and service providers on the cryptoasset market require a CASP (Crypto-Asset Service Provider) license issued by the competent financial supervision authority. In Estonia, this function is performed by Finantsinspektsioon.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) in the Supervisory Briefing document published on January 31, 2025, indicated that when authorizing such entities, national regulators examine, among others: business model, conflicts of interest, corporate governance solutions, IT systems and internal control mechanisms.

The sudden loss of all supervisory authority does not necessarily automatically block licensing, but may be an important element of the regulator's assessment. In practice, supervision examines, among others, who exercises control over the management board, how the risk management system works and whether management continuity is maintained – according to ESMA guidelines and MiCA regulations.

The licensing process also includes an assessment of the applicant's financial situation. The Estonian economic register e-Aeriregister shows that on July 16, 2025, the local financial intelligence unit FIU (Rahapesu Andmebueroo) recorded a supervisory action against the company for failure to submit an auditor's report relating to own funds.

Without a new license, companies operating with Estonian permits will have to close their current operations at the end of June.

On Monday, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection said in response to PAP's questions that it had received over 200 signals related to Zondacrypto. Almost all of them were received in the last two weeks. In January 2025, the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection initiated explanatory proceedings against the operator of zondacrypto.com – BB Trade Estonia OU.

The media wrote at the beginning of April that the Zondacrypto cryptocurrency exchange may have serious liquidity problems. The analysis, obtained by money.pl and Wirtualna Polska, revealed a decline in bitcoin reserves of the Zondacrypto exchange by 99%. Users report problems with withdrawing funds, journalists reported. The president of Zondacrypto, Przemysław Kral, assured in a statement that Zondacrypto is a stable, solvent and safe entity, and money.pl's analysis is “erroneous, untrue and unfair.”

The Zondacrypto exchange has a portfolio of 4.5 thousand. bitcoins worth over USD 300 million, but – as Kral reported last week – the keys to them are held by the missing Sylwester Suszek, founder of the BitBay exchange, the predecessor of Zondacrypto. Suszek, referred to as the “king of cryptocurrencies”, went missing in March 2022.

An investigation into the possible fraud of customers of the Zondacrypto cryptocurrency exchange was initiated by the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Katowice. According to investigators, the total amount of damage is currently no less than PLN 350 million.

On Sunday, a joint statement by former members of the supervisory board: Veronica Tugo (chairman), Guido Buehler and Dzhanashvili was published on the Linkedin profile of Giorgi Dzhanashvili, one of the members of the Supervisory Board of the Estonian company BB Trade Estonia OU, whose cryptocurrency license allows Zondacrypto to provide services. They announced that they had independently resigned from their positions on the supervisory board.

On Friday, the Sejm did not reject the president's veto for the second time to the act on the crypto-assets market, which was intended to enable the Polish Financial Supervision Authority to supervise this market. Minister of Finance and Economy Andrzej Domański said on Monday that the ministry is working on solutions that could lead to the adoption of the act on the crypto-assets market. As he reported on TOK FM, no decision has been made yet on the final shape of the next proposal. (PAP)

Mieszko Czarnecki (PAP)

cmm/ mick/ ktl/