Kazakhstan plans ‘crypto city’ project backed by China

Kazakhstan intends to build the Central Asian region’s first “crypto city” with support recently secured in China, local officials unveiled.

The project is centered on establishing a special zone for blockchain business where even cryptocurrency payments will be possible.

Kazakhstan gears up for mega ‘CryptoCity’ project

The mining hotspot of Kazakhstan plans to create a new hub for the country’s growing crypto economy that will be the first of its kind in the region as well.

The ambitious initiative will be implemented in the newly established city of Alatau, a strategic project of the government in Astana, which wants to turn the place into an international venue.

The latter was formed under a presidential decree issued in early 2024, by merging over a dozen former villages and settlements, with a total population now exceeding 50,000 people, into a new urban area in the Almaty region.

The city is situated along the main Almaty-Qonaev highway, a link in the Western Europe – Western China transport corridor, and should become a major economic and logistics hub.

Kazakh officials plan to grant it the status of a free economic zone, which will give foreign visitors and investors a number of benefits, including visa-free access to the 880 square kilometer district and unrestricted purchases of real estate.

Crypto hub at Eurasian route to be created with Chinese help

The authorities in Astana have some big plans for the new city of Alatau and intend to make it a future-oriented hub for business and innovation, the Kazakhstani news outlet Kursiv wrote in a report on Thursday.

During a visit to China, a Kazakhstani delegation managed to conclude agreements worth billions of U.S. dollars with a number of global companies. Among them, a construction firm that participated in the building of the Shenzhen technopolis, the article highlighted.

Commenting on the project, a representative of the local administration emphasized that Alatau will not be a simple digital city and elaborated:

“Our goal is to create a ‘crypto city.’ This concept goes beyond the typical smart city. Blockchain and cryptocurrency will be integrated into all areas of urban life – management, finance, services, data storage, and exchange. All of this will be open, secure, and convenient.”

“This isn’t just an opportunity to pay with Bitcoin, but a city with its own economic and social system built on decentralized principles,” the municipal government official insisted.

Kazakhstan takes another step towards crypto adoption

The initiative to establish a special place for crypto operations was presented by Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at the Astana International Forum last May. At the time, the head of state was quoted by local media as stating:

“We plan to create an innovative pilot zone, ‘CryptoCity,’ in which cryptocurrencies can be used to purchase goods, services and for other purposes.”

In November, the National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) announced it wants to integrate crypto exchange tools into bank terminals to facilitate cryptocurrency payments. The following month, the regulator said it had launched a pilot project.

By all indications, these payments will be made through conversion to fiat as officials have made it clear the Kazakhstani tenge will remain the only legal tender in most of the country’s jurisdiction.

More recently, the monetary authority unveiled it will allow crypto traders to top-up their exchange accounts using QR codes at point-of-sale (POS) terminals.

Also in November, Tokayev approved legislation lifting some restrictions on crypto mining and expanding the legal circulation of cryptocurrencies beyond the narrow framework of a fintech hub in the capital city called the Astana International Financial Center (AIFC).

At the end of 2025, Kazakh lawmakers passed provisions permitting the establishment of crypto exchanges outside the AIFC, which will be licensed by the NBK. According to official estimates, quoted by Kursiv, only 5% of Kazakhstani investors are using the platforms registered as residents there.

Then, in January 2026, the president signed another two laws, concerning the banking and the financial sectors, which liberalize the crypto market, too.

The Kazakhstani news outlet noted that the new urban center of Alatau, including the planned crypto city, are expected to generate up to $50 billion for the Central Asian nation over the next 30 years, provided the project reaches its full potential.