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Kazakhstan Moves to Build a National Crypto Reserve Funded by Bitcoin Miners

Kazakhstan has laid out a plan to build a national strategic crypto reserve fed by its bitcoin miners, part of a two-step push by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to pull the country’s large mining industry into a regulated, state-supervised system.

A presidential decree signed July 7 sets the frame, and a government resolution approved July 18 supplies the mechanism. The government cleared the rules for strategic digital mining under Government Resolution No. 638, published in the PRG.kz legal database.

Together the two measures aim to route mining output and crypto trading through Kazakh infrastructure, with the state taking a share of mined coins for a sovereign reserve.

The reserve sits at the center. Under the July 18 resolution, the Kazakhstan government created a program of “strategic digital mining,” in which miners receive electricity quotas at capped tariffs on 10-year contracts from listed power producers. In exchange, they must hand over part of what they mine, according to local reporting.

A formula sets the transfer at 10% of mined digital assets after the cost of electricity and grid services, paid each month to the state-linked Astana Hub fund, which passes the coins to the National Investment Corporation of the National Bank for management inside a “national strategic crypto reserve.”

The first approved power source is the Ekibastuz GRES-1 coal plant, with a 300-megawatt quota. To qualify, a miner must run a data center of at least 150 megawatts, with rigs that each clear 150 terahashes per second, among other conditions.

The resolution defines its reserve as a vehicle to invest in digital assets, in derivatives tied to those assets, and in the shares of companies that build or invest in crypto. 

Rather than hold coins alone, the structure gives the state a spread of exposure to the sector it now seeks to grow, with the National Bank’s investment arm at the controls.

The design turns Kazakhstan’s cheap power and mining base into a channel for state accumulation, an approach that echoes the reserve strategies spreading among governments. Kazakhstan had floated a $1 billion crypto reserve built in part on seized assets and state-mined coins, and its central bank moved to invest up to $350 million in crypto-linked funds. 

The United States established a strategic bitcoin reserve from forfeited coins last year, a model other states have weighed.

Kazakhstan as a bitcoin mining hub

Kazakhstan ranks among the world’s largest bitcoin mining hubs, fifth by mining activity in the Cambridge Digital Mining Industry Report from April 2025, a status built on cheap coal power that drew miners after China’s 2021 ban, though the country moved to tighten its mining rules over grid strain. 

The new program reads as an attempt to harness that base rather than curb it, and the decree directs the Kazakhstan government to tap associated petroleum gas, natural gas, and renewable output for mining.

Other crypto tasked

The July 7 decree reaches past mining. It sets up a Committee on Digital Assets and Payment Systems under the National Bank, and orders work on tokenization platforms, exchange and custody services, and crypto-fiat channels tied to the financial system.

It calls for stablecoins to settle cross-border trade for export and import, tokenized government securities by the end of 2026, and rules that isolate customer assets from a bankrupt provider’s estate.

To pull activity onshore, the decree offers a plan to exempt individuals from personal income tax on crypto gains earned through Kazakh providers from the start of 2026 through the end of 2028, plus a window for holders to disclose coins acquired or mined in the past if they move them into regulated infrastructure. 

The government also plans a National Cryptocurrency Analysis Center by mid-2027 to track transactions and flag illicit schemes, along with a review of DeFi platforms.

This post Kazakhstan Moves to Build a National Crypto Reserve Funded by Bitcoin Miners first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Source: BitcoinMagazine