The freezing of BB Trade Estonia's assets - what exactly happened?
On 27 July 2026, an Estonian court issued an order prohibiting BB Trade Estonia OÜ - the operator of the Zondacrypto cryptocurrency exchange - from disposing of its assets without the consent of a temporary court-appointed trustee. The order in case no. 2-26-14436/4 was recorded in the Estonian business registers. The following day, Margus Lentsius, a Tallinn insolvency practitioner, took over the duties of trustee.
The chronology of recent weeks forms a consistent picture. On 18 May 2026, the Estonian financial intelligence unit partially suspended the company's licence, ordering it to bring its operations into compliance within thirty days. On 29 June 2026, the licence was revoked in full, because the company had failed to comply with the order. BB Trade Estonia did not file its financial statements for 2025, and the register contains a notice of possible striking-off of the entity.
The petition for the declaration of insolvency was filed by a private individual represented by attorney Marek Keiman of the Magnusson law firm. The scale of the case is defined by specific figures: the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Katowice estimates the losses at no less than PLN 350 million, while the Estonian press writes of fraud exceeding €80 million. The number of affected clients is estimated at 30-57 thousand people.
The first step is not yet insolvency - what does it mean in practice?
It is worth stressing emphatically: insolvency has not been declared. A prohibition on disposing of assets and the appointment of a temporary trustee are features of the stage of examining the petition, not of the insolvency proceedings proper (sections 20 and 22 of the Estonian Bankruptcy Act - Pankrotiseadus). The debtor retains management of its assets, but any disposals require the trustee's consent. The trustee's task is to establish the state of the assets and prepare a report for the court.
Three outcomes are possible from this stage:
- the court declares insolvency and appoints a liquidator,
- the court dismisses the petition,
- the court terminates the case because the assets do not even cover the costs of the proceedings (unless creditors pay an advance).
A decision on whether to declare insolvency should be expected between the end of August and the end of September 2026. Only the declaration of insolvency opens the deadlines for filing claims, the powers to challenge the company's earlier transactions, and full management of the estate. The first real test in the case will be a prosaic question: who will fund the continuation of the proceedings?
Estonia is a jurisdiction with fewer than one and a half million inhabitants and around one hundred and fifty company insolvencies a year. The Zondacrypto case - with tens of thousands of foreign creditors and claims denominated in crypto-assets - has no precedent here.
The geography of the assets and the status of clients in the proceedings
An Estonian company with no assets in Estonia
In Estonia, the company had an address, a register entry and a licence. Today the licence has been revoked, the office is abandoned, there is no staff, and the management board remains unreachable. Three members of the supervisory board resigned in mid-April. Analyses by the investigative firm Recoveris indicate that the exchange's operating reserves have shrunk by more than 99 per cent, and that between December 2025 and April 2026 around $21 million left the company's wallets.
The substance of the business lay elsewhere: clients and zloty flows in Poland, a branch in Katowice, payment handling through Polish payment intermediaries, a transaction database with a Polish technology provider, and capital links leading to Switzerland. Formally, the Estonian proceedings cover the debtor's entire estate - physically in Estonia they may cover little more than the furniture.
Clients as creditors, not owners
If client assets were commingled with the company's funds - and the very nature of the shortfall suggests they were - clients will appear in the insolvency as creditors, not as owners of segregated property. A creditor joins the queue: after the costs of the proceedings and after preferential claims. This classification will determine the mathematics of recovery more strongly than any court order.
The criminal track versus the insolvency track - why the order matters
The same assets cannot satisfy creditors twice. If an asset is secured in criminal proceedings to compensate the injured parties, the liquidator's work on that same asset creates not value but costs. The prosecutor's office has an arsenal of tools unavailable to a liquidator:
- search and seizure of items and IT data,
- the European Investigation Order,
- the EU system of mutual recognition of freezing and confiscation orders,
- police cooperation channels reaching beyond the European Union.
The race is already under way - the prosecutor's office has blocked €4 million in an account at a French bank. Importantly, compensation awarded in a criminal judgment goes to the injured party without the insolvency queue and without deductions for the costs of the proceedings. The reflex of registering on every list at once may prove costly - Article 415 § 1, second sentence of the Polish Code of Criminal Procedure (k.p.k.) contains an anti-cumulation clause that may block pursuing the same claim in two proceedings simultaneously.
Secondary proceedings in Poland and the chance of a Polish liquidator
The company has a branch in Poland, which constitutes an establishment within the meaning of Regulation 2015/848. The opening of main proceedings in Estonia does not close the door to secondary proceedings before a Polish court, covering assets located in Poland - with a Polish liquidator, in the Polish language, with claims filed in the National Debtors Register (Krajowy Rejestr Zadłużonych) and with natural proximity to the Katowice investigations.
A creditor may file a claim in both proceedings, and the systems reconcile so that no one is satisfied twice. One important point should be added: an insolvency petition does not require thousands of signatures. One creditor who demonstrates the debtor's insolvency is enough.
What should affected Zondacrypto clients do right now?
As of today, there is nothing to file in Estonia - no deadline for filing claims is running. If insolvency is declared, claims are filed with the liquidator within two months of the announcement. EU law protects foreign creditors: known creditors should be notified individually, and claims can be filed on a standard EU form, in principle also in Polish.
Regardless of how the insolvency proceedings develop, documentation is of key importance: account history, confirmations of deposits and failed withdrawals, correspondence with the exchange, and screenshots of the balance. The criminal track comes first, because injured-party status secures your position regardless of the insolvency calendar - the same evidence will later determine the effectiveness of a claim filing.
Warning: no one acting lawfully will call with a guarantee of recovering your funds for an upfront fee. Neither the trustee nor a future liquidator phones creditors or charges fees for registering claims. We urge particular caution towards offers that invoke the Estonian proceedings.
Are you a Zondacrypto client and unable to recover your funds? Contact our firm - we will help you secure your legal position in both the criminal proceedings and any future insolvency proceedings. Time is working against you - every day without documentation is a lost evidential opportunity.
Have a question about this?
The first consultation is free - let us talk about your situation.
