The president of Kazakhstan, signed a new law that reaffirmed the country’s opposition to illegal mining operations and the issuing of crypto assets.
One of the largest Bitcoin (BTC $21,729) mining centres in the world, Kazakhstan, has revealed plans to establish new crypto legislation to cut down on tax fraud and illegal business practices.
On February 6, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev reaffirmed the country’s position against illegal mining operations and the issuance of cryptocurrency. The first of the two separate pieces of legislation calls for the government’s approval of the issuers of secured digital assets.
The country’s current law, “On Combating the Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime and the Financing of Terrorism,” will also be used to monitor these issuers.
The bill will become operative on April 1st, 2023.The second law focuses on unprotected digital assets, which are often obtained through cryptocurrency mining operations.
Crypto miners in Kazakhstan will be required to sell at least 75% of their profits through authorized cryptocurrency exchanges in order to lessen the likelihood of tax avoidance.
This rule, which aims to collect “information on the income of digital miners and digital mining pools for tax purposes,” will be effective from Jan. 1, 2024, to Jan. 1, 2025.
All Kazakh permits for cryptocurrency mining are only valid for three years, and they vary depending on whether the miner controls the mining infrastructure.
The “digital tenge,” a project of Kazakhstan’s central bank’s digital currency (CBDC), was launched alongside the introduction of the aforementioned regulations.
In a report jointly published by the National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) and crypto exchange Binance, NBK deputy governor Berik Sholpankupov wrote about the bank’s vision of a “collaboration between traditional finance and DeFi,” adding:
“In Kazakhstan, we also started a practical R&D project to explore how our CBDC – Digital Tenge, can bridge the world of crypto with traditional fiat payments infrastructure.”
A permanent license to run a platform for digital assets and offer custody services was previously awarded to Binance by Kazakhstan’s Astana Financial Services Authority in October 2022.
