By George Ward
Kazakhstan is scheduled to have its CBDC completed and ready for business activities during the early months of next year. In addition, a spokesman from the apex bank of Kazakhstan has announced plans for the circulation of the CBDC, a digital currency associated with the central bank of Kazakhstan.
This CBDC will be made available to the public within three years. Kazakhstan’s national bank (the Central Bank of Kazakhstan) has tested the CBDC in two stages. Kazakhstan mines 13.22% of BTCs worldwide, and it’s the 3rd largest miner of BTC in the world.
Kazakhstan is surpassed only by the United States and China, according to Statista, an on-chain analytics firm. During the last testing stage of the CBDC, Kazakhstan was determined to know the possible benefits of launching the CBDC.
Possible benefits include; strengthening the ability of the National Bank of Kazakhstan to make financial services available to every Kazakhstan resident. It can also help the country compete favorably with other countries with well-developed payment systems.
Launching The Digital Tenge – Kazakhstan’s CBDC
After two phases of experimentation, Kazakhstan has concluded that the best decision is to issue this national digital currency over time. However, the country’s financial regulators added, “we require technical development and framework readiness. Hence, we still need to create a functioning prototype and a regulatory plan.”
Therefore, it suggested a gradual rollout of the national digital currency, the digital Tenge. Kazakhstan’s CBDC launch has been boosted by the success of the 2 phases carried out by its apex bank.
This was confirmed through a whitepaper published by the apex bank stating that it developed a proper plan for every stage and considered various factors in determining whether the digital currency should be released to the public.
The report also states that the country plans to make digital currency available to the public in the first or second month of 2023. By implementing its plans, the National Bank will ensure that the digital Tenge is fully used for commercial activities within the next three years.
The first and second test for the digital Tenge – the CBDC of Kazakhstan was completed between the middle and end of last year. Some users were randomly chosen to help test if it would be a good idea to launch the digital Tenge.
The third stage of the test will be the launch of the digital currency, with updates to follow until the end of the year. After that, Digital Asset Engineers will focus on creating a digital currency that will be useful for commercial activities across the country.
The 4th stage will enable Kazakhstan’s apex bank to circulate the digital Tenge across every part of the country. The last stage is scheduled to take place during the last month of 2025.