Kazakhstan to allocate $300M to crypto investments

Kazakhstan’s central bank is prepared to spend up to $300 million on the purchase of crypto assets, its governor announced to the press.

The exact size of the investment, which will be funded through the country’s gold and forex reserves, will be determined based on market conditions.

Kazakhstan ready to buy cryptocurrency with gold and fiat

The National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) may acquire up to $300 million worth of crypto assets, the head of the monetary authority announced on Friday.

Speaking at a briefing for local media, NBK Chairman Timur Suleimenov indicated the regulator wants to see the dust from the latest market crash settle, before betting on Bitcoin, RBC reported.

“This doesn’t mean we’ve just put $300 million in,” the central bank’s top executive remarked at the press conference, quoted by the Kazakhstani news outlet Zakon.kz, and elaborated:

“Maybe we’ll limit ourselves to $50 million, maybe $100 million, or $250 million. This is a very difficult work, given the fact that the entire crypto market has collapsed, and we’re rethinking the prospects for monetization, achieving profitability, and so on.”

The total capitalization of the global crypto market has dropped by some $500 billion in November, noted the crypto page of the Russian business news website.

Bitcoin (BTC), the cryptocurrency with the largest market cap, fell by 17%, from $110,000 to $81,000, hitting a seven-month low. It has since rebounded to a little over $90,000 at the time of writing.

Suleimenov emphasized the money for the crypto investment will come from the NBK’s gold and foreign exchange reserves, not from the Kazakhstan’s National fund at this point.

The latter comprises financial assets in the government’s account at the central bank and other tangible assets used to ensure the country’s social and economic stability.

The governor also noted that the regulator has already created a separate portfolio of investments in high-tech stocks and financial instruments related to digital assets.

He stressed that Kazakhstan’s monetary authority is not going to make hasty investments but intends to wait for good opportunities to emerge, and explained to reporters:

“After the current decline in all digital, financial, and crypto assets, we need to let the dust settle before making investment decisions. We are not planning to rush into anything.”

The necessary legal framework and infrastructure is already in place, Suleimenov highlighted, but decisions will be made based on a thorough analysis, which is now being conducted.

Kazakhstan is carefully building its crypto reserves

The governor of the National Bank of Kazakhstan was commenting on previous statements made by one of his deputies this month.

Speaking at the parliament in Astana earlier in November, Deputy Chairman Berik Sholpankulov first unveiled that the NBK may use the National Fund and its other reserves to purchase crypto, as reported by Cryptopolitan.

Suleimenov himself told Bloomberg the same week that Kazakhstan is building a cryptocurrency reserve that will hold up to $1 billion in digital assets, including coins seized by the state, shares of companies from the industry, and crypto-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Besides, Kazakhstan has one crypto reserve already set up. At the end of September, its Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development announced the launch of the Alem Crypto Fund.

The latter is backed by Binance, the world’s largest digital asset exchange by daily trading volume, and made its first investment in the trading platform’s native token, BNB.

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