Polish Startups Back Blockchain Best Practices Proposal

Poland's digital currency industry has adopted a new proposal designed to allow the local blockchain industry to self-regulate.

Adopted on 29th March, the best practices cover areas related to the activities of cryptocurrency companies including their recommended legal form, transparency, legality of operations, relations with public authorities, customer relations, technology and security, as well as their stance toward customers and business partners.

The adoption further follows their preparation earlier this year by industry representatives including professor Krzysztof Piech, a faculty member at Warsaw's Lazarski University; Konrad Zacharzewski, PhD, a lecturer at Nicolaus Copernicus University; and Lech Wilczynski, the CEO of bitcoin payments platform InPay.

Additional contributors to the document include representatives from Bitstar.pl, dLK Korus Okoń, Bitelon, Fintech Poland and BitMarket. Public institutions that were represented at the 29th March meeting included the Financial Supervision Authority, the Ministry of Finance and the country's competition watchdog UOKiK.

Industry representatives say they hope that the best practices will also increase risk awareness in the Polish cryptocurrency market following the news local law enforcement are investigating the shutdown of local exchange Bitcurex.

Overall, the document also proposes a number of trust-building solutions, calling on industry players to inform the agency about "planned interruptions" and recommending that maintenance extend for no more than 48 hours.

Further, all such interruptions are to be communicated to customers and business partners by e-mail and on company websites, according to the document.

"The idea behind the code is to try to reduce the risk of such a collapse by identifying the best practices for the existing, and, above all, new exchanges that might not be aware of certain risks,” Wilczynski told CoinDesk.

He added that the proposal provides additional information for how customers should be able to evaluate a given platform regarding its level of financial and technical security.

Correction: An earlier version of this article suggested Poland's Digital Ministry had backed the initiative. 

Krakow image via Shutterstock