Polish Minister of Finance confirmed that bitcoin regulation should be initiated by EU in response to the request filed by Polish legislator and politician, member of the party Right and Justice Maks Kraczkowski.

Kraczkowski filed his request in August urging the Ministry to consider the regulation of bitcoin, claiming that the lack of action in this area may lead to harmful consequences for citizens due to hacker attacks and cybercrime. He asked the Ministry to reveal what specific measures the government is going to take to solve the problem of the lack of bitcoin regulation. The MP requested for clarification on the following questions: whether the Ministry is overseeing bitcoin trade and monitor the risks related to the tax status of bitcoin, what are the results of this monitoring, and how the Ministry assesses the regulatory measure taken by other countries.

The Ministry replied that the legislation in the field of cryptocurrencies should be initiated by EU structures. The Polish government is monitoring the bitcoin market and is observing the regulatory work of the EU institutions such as the David Hedqvist's case filed to the European Court of Justice on bitcoin tax status.

This is the second request on the regulation of virtual currency made by Kraczkowski. He filed the first one in May, stating that bitcoin was experiencing a rapid growth and citing the use of the cryptocurrency in Germany, the US and other countries. The MP reminded the Ministry of Finance of the major trends in the industry and mentioned that some significant entities had already adopted bitcoin, including Microsoft, Dell, Virgin Galactic, Mozilla and Wikipedia. In that request Kraczkowski quoted the normative statement of the Poland's Ministry of Finance from 28 June 2013, where virtual currencies were not considered national or foreign means of payment, nor covered as electronic method of payment or any other financial instrument.

Kraczkowski addressed the Minister of Finance asking whether he intended to look into the digital currency bitcoin and related issues of safety, money laundering, cybercrime and tax policies.

In its first response to Kraczkowski the Ministry of Finance cited the document published by the Central European bank in March and referred to the risks of volatility, the ambiguity of the term ‘currency’ when applied to bitcoin and the limited scale of cryptocurrency transactions. The overall conclusion stated that the global character of the digital currency requires its regulation on the EU level.

As we reported in January, two Polish banks, Bank Zachodni WBK and BPH, shut down the accounts of bitcoin companies citing the lack of regulation of the cryptocurrency in the country.

Aliona Chapel