By Mark Ackman
According to media reports, the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, said that the country is prepared to approve a mechanism for the conversion of crypto into cash, should there be enough demand.
Tokayev spoke at the international forum called Digital Bridge 2022 and said that when it comes to digital technology, Kazakhstan wants to become the leader in the field internationally, along with the crypto ecosystem and mining.
The measures
The president said that amendments in the national law had been drafted by the country’s government that was aimed at piloting a mechanism for crypto conversion.
Tokayev said that they were ready to take things forward and would give crypto complete legal regulation if it is able to show security and relevance in the future.
While attending the Digital Bridge 2022 event, reports said that Kazakhstan’s president visited a joint booth of the Intebix crypto exchange and that of prominent local lender Eurasian Bank.
Reports indicated that the crypto exchange and bank had announced that they had completed the first regulated crypto purchase of the bank for fiat currency.
This is a major milestone in the road to crypto adoption in Kazakhstan, which would permit the local people to use the national currency tenge for making their crypto purchases in the future.
Incoming Russians
There are some other companies that are also running their pilot projects and these include Halyk Bank, which is the largest bank in Kazakhstan, along with Altyn Bank, and also crypto exchange ATAIX.
This news comes just as Kazakhstan is seeing a massive influx of Russians in the country, a week after the announcement of Russian President Vladimir Putin partially mobilizing reservists in the conflict with Ukraine.
The use of the Russian Mir payment cards had been suspended by the Halyk Bank in Kazakhstan on September 21st, as the United States, Treasury Department had issued sanctions warnings.
Kazakhstan is not the only country that has become a popular destination for Russians fleeing the country and has also been working on promoting crypto adoption.
Neighboring country Georgia is also interested in becoming a global crypto hub, due to which it has been making efforts to introduce new crypto regulations.
Crypto use
While countries such as Kazakhstan and Georgia are accelerating their efforts when it comes to using crypto and Russians are fleeing the country due to mobilization, Europe is becoming quite concerned.
This is because there have been numerous reports of Russia using crypto for evading sanctions. Back in April, the European Union had restricted the amount of Russian payments that could be made to European crypto wallets to 10,000 euros.
Now, reports have revealed that it is planning on banning Russian entities and nationals from having any assets in European crypto wallets.
Since Russia has been mostly cut off from the global financial system due to Western sanctions, its dependence on crypto has increased in order to bypass them.
But, the Bank of Russia is certainly not in favor of legalizing crypto for the purpose of local use.