00:00musik
00:10Kazakhstan aims to become one of Eurasia's leading crypto hubs
00:13trading is now legal on national bank approved platforms
00:16and mining has been formalized as a licensed business
00:19the country is also creating a national crypto reserve
00:22using seized assets to invest in digital markets
00:25welcome to east-west connect we're highlighting business and economic
00:31opportunities in kazakhstan and the wider central asia region
00:34connecting with europe and beyond after becoming a crypto mining hotspot
00:39kazakhstan rolled out sweeping regulation in 2023
00:43but by 2025 about 95 percent of digital asset turnover
00:47over 13 billion euro was still illegal at the same time
00:51trading volumes on licensed digital asset platforms
00:54surged more than 20-fold from just over 270 million euro
00:58in 2023 to nearly 6 billion in the first three quarters of 2025
01:02to discuss the attractiveness of kazakhstan's crypto sector
01:06we're now joined by daurian karashev
01:09chair of the national blockchain association
01:11mr karashev welcome to the program thank you
01:15what is kazakhstan's ultimate goal when it comes to crypto
01:18is it control revenue or innovation
01:20the ultimate goal is clear and regulate the development of crypto market in kazakhstan
01:26crypto is innovation at the same time crypto is not fully identifiable
01:33is often used in criminal activity tool
01:36that's why the main priority of our country is to provide transparency
01:41when we talk about transparency we should understand how and where
01:45the crypto traded exchange it and who is responsible for that
01:50how safe and attractive is kazakhstan for international and domestic crypto investors
01:54and does the state um balance uh incentives with restrictions effectively
02:00until 2026 the sole and legal gateway for crypto uh was astana international financial center
02:07and from 2026 the second framework under the national bank will launch
02:14um and this is creates the hybrid model uh the first system is for international investors
02:21the second one is for internal investment investors and kazakhstan is also the leading crypto mining hub
02:29the locally mined crypto uh is considered as clear without any uh history of transaction
02:35and it's driving the demand for such crypto and it sells through licensed local exchanges
02:42should enhance security and trust to our market uh for crypto investors so what are the risks of
02:49trading in a currency that is not officially issued by the government there is no central bank on
02:56behind that can provide transparency stability and security moreover this risk is not only about
03:05price volatility there is also the infrastructural risk for example blockchain networks works on with
03:11validators validators are paid by same tokens if that the price for these tokens fall sharply
03:19uh and stay low uh their validators can leave the blockchain market mr karashev thanks so much for
03:26being with us thank you for inviting by december 2025 the financial monitoring agency had seized and frozen
03:34almost 14 million euro in illegally acquired crypto some linked to darknet operations and illicit marketplaces
03:41in a bid to legalize and regulate the sector president tokayev announced the alatau crypto city project
03:47the country's first pilot zone where crypto payments will be permitted kazakhstan plans to turn alatau
03:55crypto city into a pioneering digital hub and a smart city for innovation attracting tech talent and
04:01investment users will be able to conduct crypto based transactions for real estate and business
04:06activities the sandbox will operate under crypto friendly laws tax incentives and a national digital asset
04:12reserve shifting the economy from purely mining to a broader digital ecosystem we have a special tax
04:18regime it includes incentives for corporate income tax v80 and others and this will improve the return on
04:27investments and the second is that we apply common law investors will definitely benefit because they will
04:34find familiar and predictable legal framework and eventually it will become a safe harbor for their assets
04:40alongside developing the crypto sector the government is establishing a forensic system to detect a
04:45legal activity ensuring a safer environment for users even if bad actors attempt to bypass regulations
04:51katastan's crypto forensic tools aim to restore users rights and secure their interests
04:56through the alatau crypto city concept cutters and hopes to attract scalable innovation and
05:26investment that will contribute the economic growth within a securely regulated environment
05:32joining us now is binur žalanov chief digital officer and advisor to the chairman of the national
05:38bank of kazakhstan mr žalanov good to have you with us thank you thank you for invitation it's
05:45pleasure to be here how will um digital finance help uh drive kazakhstan's economic modernization
05:52through the national reserve and crypto city projects in december we launched national crypto reserve
05:57it essentially would help us to diversify our sovereign portfolio we will have three types of
06:03investment there so the first type is confiscated funds from illegal activity encrypt etc etc but we also
06:09will be directly investing in certain crypto assets for example bitcoin or whatsoever and the third type is a
06:17is a direct investment to crypto related activities etf funds crypto ecosystem players like binance or
06:22buying an equity and these companies but we will make it we will make this investment of course
06:28risk-based on a risk-based approach so we hope that this type of class will help us to drive our
06:34profits how will the national bank protect protect the tenge now that you know crypto is entering the
06:39financial system and in essence we are trying to build this national crypto ecosystem anchored to national
06:45currency so naturally it wouldn't really harm our monetary sovereignty or financial stability
06:51but of course it would take time and and we hope that the regulation that we developed is balanced
06:55so on one hand we want to protect consumers from illicit activity from fraud and we want to prevent
07:02uh capital uh outflows and many other bad things but on the other hand we want enable innovative
07:08business models and this just will be two jurisdiction within one country with two different
07:13regulators and they would complement each other i don't see any conflict of interest we will focus
07:19on mostly on the uh local supply and demand retail uh crypto investments etc and like local players and
07:27afc will regulate the players who want to be a little bit more global and regional and we will build
07:33bridges between offshore jurisdiction afc and onshore jurisdiction so it's complementary things we are not
07:39binding anything that is already happening in afc we're just expanding this uh to build a more
07:45sophisticated digital ecosystem in kazakhstan mr julino thanks so much for your time today yeah thank you
07:51it's been a pleasure that's all for now see you in the next episode of east west connect
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