Kazakhstan plans to launch “cryptocity”, a pilot area where cryptocurrencies can be used to pay goods and services, said country president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. According to an announcement of May 29 on the president’s official website.
Speaking at Astana International Forum 2025, Tokayev said that the pilot zone will be used to explore the adoption of cryptocurrency in a regulated sandbox environment.
“We plan to create a pioneering pilot zone called cryptocity where cryptocurrencies could be used to buy goods, services and even beyond,” he said in his remarks, a transcribed has been published on the president’s official website.
Several announcements related to crypto have recently emerged from Kazakhstan. Kanysh Tuleushin, the country’s first minister of digital development in the country, said this month in Kazakhstan had the potential to become a main crypto center in Central Asia if the regulatory restrictions are relaxed. In 2024, Kazakhstan launched a pilot project with its Central Bank digital currency, which would have reduced time to reimburse value added tax.
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Why build cryptocicity in Alatau?
A Report of May 29 of the local media Tengri News cited the Minister of Digital Development of Kazakhstan, Zhaslan Madiyev. A city is already considered serious.
“Of course, the most promising place of cryptocicity is the new city of Alatau-this is the president’s initiative,” he said.
Alatau is a colony relatively close to the southeast border of Kazakhstan. It was created in 1957 as an anonymous colony for scientific institutions and their workers and shelters the Institute of Nuclear Physics, the Nuclear Center National Kazakhstan, with an experimental nuclear reactor and a cyclotron, and the physics and technology institute.
In addition to serving as Kazakhstan Research Center, Alatau is organizing a special economic area known as the Technology Park innovation. Consequently, regulators may think that adding another to the mixture is a natural step that could cause synergies that could attract additional capital. Madiyev enlted how the omnipresent crypto would be in the region:
“The concept is that cryptocurrency would be used as a means of payment – to pay in restaurants, cafes, buy real estate, make investments. I think that could be a major breakthrough for the blockchain industry.”
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Madiyev expressed his hope that the project would attract developers, programmers and computer specialists in Kazakhstan, thus strengthening local economic growth.
While noting that the emphasis is on work on the regulatory framework, “the city itself is already under development,” he said, noting that “cryptocity implies free circulation of cryptocurrency, legislation and friendly crypto in crypto as a legitimate means.”
“These conditions must be reflected in law,” he added.
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