Kazakhstan’s national cryptocurrency to be launched on the Binance blockchain

Changpeng Zhao, CEO of the largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, said that the Central Bank of Kazakhstan will test the deployment of the national digital currency on the BNB Chain blockchain as part of pilot trials. Zhao emphasized that the Binance team is continuously promoting the global adoption of cryptocurrencies in Asia, so the BNB network will be integrated into the digital tenge, Kazakhstan’s CBDC.

Quick story about the #Binance team relentlessly pushing crypto adoption globally.

2 weeks ago, Binance got a license in Kazakhstan. But we didn’t stop there

— CZ? Binance (@cz_binance) October 26, 2022

The pilot is being tested with two of the country’s largest commercial banks, Caspian Bank JSC and Eurasian Bank JSC. Kazakhstan’s CBDC model is two-tiered, meaning that the country’s central bank controls the entire system, while smaller banks open digital wallets in tenge, where users can exchange funds using the state digital asset, as well as make interbank transfers. The Central Bank of Kazakhstan has emphasized that CBDC is not intended to replace cash or non-cash payments — digital tenge tokens will not be recorded on the balance sheets of banks, but only in users' digital wallets.

The license to operate in Kazakhstan grants Binance the status of a regulated platform and authorizes the company to offer customers services for trading digital assets, making deposits and withdrawals in fiat currency. Binance also received the President’s permission to develop the virtual asset market in Kazakhstan. To this end, Changpeng Zhao and the Financial Supervisory Authority of the Republic of Kazakhstan signed a memorandum of understanding (MOA). According to Zhao, the agreement is part of the company’s Law Enforcement Training Program (LETP) to combat cybercrime.

In early October, Kazakhstan allowed legal operations with cryptocurrencies. And last week it became known that the Kazakh cryptocurrency platform Intebix continues to serve Russians despite EU sanctions. Transactions with digital currencies on this platform for citizens of the terrorist country are available only in conjunction with the national currency of Kazakhstan — the tenge (KZT).