A MiCA license issued in any EU country gives its holder access to the entire 27-country bloc as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. This means that Polish companies are likely to apply in countries like Lithuania, Latvia or Germany before passporting their services to their home country.
“The business is just moving elsewhere,” Wojciech Kaszycki, chief strategy officer of Warsaw-based fintech BTCS, told CoinDesk in a video interview. “None of the Polish companies can receive authorization in Poland.”
Nawrocki says the law, which he rejected for a third time earlier this month, gives regulators excessive powers, including the ability to block crypto companies’ websites and impose rules that could push the companies overseas. He also said it favored banks and large corporations over startups while creating an overly complex regulatory framework.
Kaszycki said he agreed with Nawrocki’s criticism that parts of the law went beyond MiCA itself. The draft, which was passed by both houses of parliament, allows the Financial Supervisory Authority (KNF) to freeze customer funds for months and block websites before companies have exhausted their legal remedies.
Mateusz Kara, CEO of London-headquartered Morphic Financial Group with deep roots and operations in Poland, said the cost of a MiCA license and political impasse could “wipe out Polish crypto.”
