Poland's Sejm Passes Sanctions Bill Freezing Crypto Assets With 240-202 Vote

Sejm Votes 240 to 202

Poland's Sejm has passed a sanctions framework that explicitly treats crypto assets as financial resources the state can freeze. The government-backed Act on Restrictive Measures cleared the lower chamber on Friday by 240 votes to 202, with one abstention, and the bill text filed with the Senate names crypto assets, within the meaning of the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), among the funds authorities can freeze when sanctions are imposed. MiCA sets common rules for crypto asset issuers and service providers across the bloc. The Polish text borrows that definition wholesale, which imports an existing EU legal category instead of coining a national one, and the draft does not list specific tokens; it relies on the regulatory definition instead. In practice, a designation issued in Warsaw could reach holdings in any asset that fits the union-wide description. The measure extends a framework Poland has operated since 2022, when a law created a national sanctions list targeting support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. That statute remains the base layer; the new text adds to it rather than replacing it. The draft widens the grounds further: certain foreign interference operations and information manipulation assessed as a serious threat to national security would also become sanctionable conduct, moving the regime beyond its original geopolitical remit. Those grounds stand on their own and do not depend on the Ukraine context. Under the bill, the interior minister would oversee the national sanctions list, and a designation takes effect the day after the authorities publish the decision. Affected individuals and companies can challenge a listing in administrative court, but the draft allows enforcement before a court rules, so a freeze can take hold while an appeal is still pending. Passage in the Sejm shows the lower chamber backed extending the sanctions toolkit to digital assets, with the Senate review now next in line.

Senate Holds a 30-Day Window

Official parliamentary records show the chamber forwarded the bill to the Senate on Monday, setting a fixed constitutional review window in motion. The upper house holds a 30-day window in which it can approve, amend or reject the legislation. If it takes no action at all, Poland's Constitution deems the bill approved in the exact shape the Sejm passed, and the text proceeds to the president for consideration. That constitutional default is written into the Senate's own rules on legislation. The Senate stage is therefore the last parliamentary step that determines the bill's final form. Silence in the upper house functions as consent rather than a veto, so opponents of the crypto-freeze provision cannot stop the text through procedural delay. Approval sends the bill to presidential review unchanged, and the head of state then evaluates the final version. An amendment or a rejection would take the process back toward the lower chamber. The Sejm, Poland's lower house, sits at the center of the legislative process, and the government-backed text cleared it with a 38-vote margin, 240 ayes against 202 nays and a single abstention. The forwarding on Monday followed the Friday floor vote within the same sitting week. The clock matters for compliance teams watching the file: a decision, or deliberate inaction, lands roughly a month from Monday's forwarding. Until the full process runs its course, no designation under the expanded grounds can take effect, and the 2022 framework continues to govern listings in the interim.

Where the Freeze Can Reach

For now the measure is a proposal, not a law: it sits at the Senate stage and binds no one until the full process completes and the text enters into force. Once it does, the freeze mechanism reaches custodial holdings first. Balances parked on exchanges, with custodians or a market-maker desk, are what a designation can actually touch. Self-custody, where holders control their own private keys, sits outside the direct reach of a freeze order, and DeFi 2.0 protocols sit outside the design of these instruments altogether. Long-term holders who hodl in self-custody face no immediate change. Custodial venues serving Polish clients already screen against EU and national lists, so an expanded national list slots into existing review flows. The dates to track are the Senate's 30-day deadline and, if the text clears, the president's review.