Estonia's Financial Watchdog Issues Partial License Suspension to Zondacrypto Parent Company
BB Trade Estonia OÜ, the entity operating Zondacrypto, faces partial license suspension from Estonia's financial intelligence authority, with a 30-day deadline to address compliance failures or face complete license withdrawal.
The parent company of the embattled cryptocurrency exchange Zondacrypto has had its operational license partially suspended by a European financial regulator.
Estonia's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has imposed a partial suspension on BB Trade Estonia OÜ's license, the entity that operates under the Zondacrypto brand name, as confirmed in an official announcement released Monday.
Based on the FIU's directive, the firm is prohibited from taking in new deposits and cannot onboard additional customers, though current account holders retain the ability to make withdrawals of their assets.
The regulatory action places BB Trade Estonia OÜ in jeopardy of complete license forfeiture should the company fail to satisfy the compliance standards established by Estonian regulatory bodies.
The company operating as Zondacrypto is experiencing intensified regulatory examination across Europe after problems with withdrawals emerged and the exchange's chief executive officer disclosed that a cold storage wallet containing approximately 4,500 Bitcoin ($345.9 million) could not be accessed.
A 30-day compliance window and potential license revocation
According to the FIU's announcement, BB Trade Estonia OÜ has been granted a 30-day period to achieve full compliance with statutory obligations in the wake of the partial license suspension.
"If it fails to do so, the law obliges the FIU to revoke the operating license," the regulator said.
The regulatory authority did not provide details regarding which specific compliance violations prompted the suspension decision. Cointelegraph reached out to the FIU seeking additional information but had not received any response by the time this article was published.
On May 8, Estonia's Financial Supervision and Resolution Authority (FSA) had already issued a public advisory concerning BB Trade, stating that the company's "TeamPL" cryptocurrency token was in breach of the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) due to the token being offered for trading without an accompanying white paper.
Zondacrypto at center of regulatory debate in Poland
The regulatory suspension arrives during a period of heightened scrutiny surrounding Zondacrypto, which includes documented problems with user withdrawals and previous statements made by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk who mentioned approximately 30,000 potential victims connected to cryptocurrency-related financial losses.
Trading statistics available from CoinGecko indicate negligible or completely absent recent exchange activity on the platform as of the time of publication.
Attempts by Cointelegraph to obtain a statement from Zondacrypto were unsuccessful, with email communications being returned as undeliverable at publication time. Senior personnel from BB Trade have also departed from the organization following previous incidents involving the exchange.
Established in Poland in 2014 under the BitBay brand, Zondacrypto has developed into a significant European cryptocurrency trading platform, especially popular among users from Polish-speaking communities.
Notwithstanding its Polish roots, the organization has maintained its official registration in Estonia since September 2019, as evidenced by InfoRegister records, substantially earlier than the EU's MiCA regulatory framework became fully operational in late 2024.
The exchange has subsequently emerged as a central topic in ongoing regulatory discussions within Poland, where government officials have expressed apprehension regarding possible connections to Russian financial backing and political interference.
Certain Polish legislators have additionally voiced criticism regarding postponements and contradictions in how the nation has rolled out MiCA regulations, despite the fact that the exchange conducted its operations through its Estonian corporate registration.
In a separate development on Tuesday, the FSA granted a MiCA license to LHV Pank, among Estonia's most prominent banking institutions, establishing it as the second financial entity in the country to secure authorization under the European Union's cryptocurrency regulatory structure.