Zonda Crypto – an analysis of facts. Why are thousands of customers waiting for money?

In fresh days, the media has seen shocking headlines on the Polish most popular cryptocurrency exchange Zonda Crypto. For respective weeks, customers have constantly refreshed the site pending payment at Bitcoin and Ethereum. There are allegations of fraud and collective lawsuits are being considered. At the same time, politicians of the ruling organization say that the origin of the problem is the presidential veto of the cryptocurrency bill. So where is the truth? Is this the beginning of the end of Zonda, a classical exit scam, or just temporary "technical problems", as the president says? Time for a cool analysis.

What's with the Zonda Crypto affair? Analysis of facts

Let's start by presenting any key information to aid us realize the scale of the problem. In average circumstances, the waiting time for payment of the stock exchange funds is simply a maximum of respective twelve minutes. Currently, Zonda customers are waiting for money from a fewer days to almost 2 weeks. First, the problem was only]]>Bitcoin, later besides Ethereum]]>. At the same time, the marketplace does not trust Zonda so much that the BTC listed on this stock exchange is about 20% cheaper than in the wide market. People are massively willing to pay money due to the fact that there is no warrant on cryptocurrency stock exchanges that the accumulated money is safe for up to a certain amount, as in the conventional market.

At this point, it is worth separating facts from myths. Contrary to any opinions, funds are actually paid to customers and there is no question of freezing them (at least at this moment). The problem is that payments are made with a very long delay. Why is this happening?

Zonda has been publishing information on the funds paid for 2 days. Source: X.com

According to the president of Przemysław Krala, the culprit is the fresh advanced AML process (anti-money laundering). The strategy began to direct a large part of the payments into manual mode, which makes it essential for employees to manually approve them, hence delays. Is that truly so? Perhaps, yes, but that does not explain all the doubts.

]]>How do crypto exchanges work?]]> Explanation of cold wallet and hot wallet

First, Zonda's fluidity was importantly compromised. If it were just about the rate of withdrawal, we wouldn't see a near-complete cleaning of the alleged hot wallet. What is that? Hot wallet is simply a portfolio of stock exchanges connected non-stop to the Internet. It works like cash in a bank window – hence fast withdrawals of customers are made. He's only keeping up to date. According to Recoveris' public analysis, the state of the portfolio was 55.7 BTC in August 2024. In March of that year it was only 0.18 BTC, and on April 1 only 0.086 BTC.

Second, during the same period (December 2025 – April 2026) Zonda made 511 transfers of assets worth a full of over PLN 76 million to a single deposit address on the Kraken stock exchange. This fact further exacerbates doubts – alternatively of overchargeing its own hot wallet to velocity up withdrawals for customers, the stock exchange performed very large outing operations. So we see liquidity management problems, which Zonda defines as a deliberate strategy. Does this mean that there was no money to pay?

The answer to that question is not obvious. Theoretically, all code exchange has a alleged cold wallet that is completely off the Internet. There's over 90% of the client's resources. The problem is that the safe transfer of funds from the Cold Wallet to the Hot Wallet takes a long time. If Zonda had only 0.086 BTC on April 1, then we should not be amazed by the delay. At this stage, we should be lit by an emergency lamp: what made the stock marketplace so slow in the short term?

A crisis of assurance in Zonda Crypto

The expected practice is to supply specified entities with the alleged Proof of Reserves, meaning an indication of where client funds are actually located. All respectable stock exchanges like Binance, Kucoin or Kraken do it. They print them with addresses and audit (often with a peculiar cryptographic signature). This has become a marketplace minimum of trust since 2022 and the collapse of the FTX exchange. Meanwhile, Przemysław Kral claims that publishing cold wallet addresses is subjecting to media force and revealing delicate operational data.

The president could cut off all media speculation with 1 post on platform X. Instead, he published a message stating that ‘Zondacrypto is simply a stable, solvent and safe entity’ and that on 1 April the reserves in Bitcoin alone amounted to more than 4500 BTCs, providing full coverage of liabilities. He besides announced a return to average withdrawal time (max. 48 hours) around 12 April. At the same time, he announced legal steps towards the media publishing the Recovery analysis. Zonda so decided to avoid full transparency, even though present it is simply a standard among the respected crypto exchange.

The controversial past of the people behind Zond Crypto

Aversion to disclosure of reserves is another component entering Zondy's wider image as an entity with limited confidence. The communicative itself raises doubts. The founder of the BitBay stock exchange (which later became Zonda Crypto), Sylvester Suszek, disappeared under unexplained circumstances on March 10, 2022. He was last seen at a business gathering at a fuel base in Czeladz, owned by Marian W. (the main fishy in the fuel mafia case). The body has not yet been found or the destiny of Suszka has not been explained.

in the image of Sylvester Suszek. Source: BeInCrypto

In 2020, journalists of the tv program "Superwizjer" revealed that first capital for the launch of the stock exchange in 2014 could come from VAT fraud and fuel mafia activities.

Among the shareholders and vice presidents of BitBay were people with a criminal past – 1 of them was previously sentenced to 18 years in prison for complicity in the killing. The study suggested a link between the stock exchange and money laundering, sutery and organized crime, and authors were offered 1 million PLN bribes for withdrawing material. Following the release of the report, the founder withdrew from the board and the stock exchange passed rebranding to Zonda and moved to Estonia.

In the context of the current payoff difficulties and the deficiency of public confirmation of the reserves, Zonda's controversial past raises questions as to whether the company has full cut off from past problems.

Zonda Crypto's problems a pretext for a pointless political war

The case gained serious publicity not only due to real problems with timely payment of funds to customers, but primarily due to its usage as a subject of tribal political struggle. After the first publications on this subject, lawyer General Waldemar Żurek announced that the prosecution included this case in the investigation into the disappearance of Suszka. Donald Tusk then publically began to link the case with the right (transfers from Kral to Zbigniew Ziobry and Przemysław Wipler), and later accused president Nawrocki and opposition of contributing to Zondy's client problems through ]]>blocking the cryptocurrency Act]]>.

At this point, however, I will not delve into the spheres of political battle, as the substance is very simple. Everything we hear about this from politicians is just a theatre to divide us erstwhile again. Zonda Crypto is registered in Estonia, so neither Polish KNF nor even more Polish law has any influence on its activity. The entry into force of the Polish implementation of the MiCA (EU regulation on the crypto-activism market) would not change anything. On the another hand, what Kral utilized to transfer funds to is of no importance, but to effort to combine Zonda with a circumstantial political group.

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Author: ]]>Paul Cream]]>