- Kazakhstan miners get 10-year power quotas in exchange for sharing mined crypto.
- Strategic miners must transfer mined crypto to Astana Hub to replenish Kazakhstan’s reserve.
- Kazakhstan will begin using the digital tenge for government procurement from August.
Kazakhstan has moved on two separate but complementary digital asset fronts this week, approving rules for a state-linked Bitcoin mining programme that will replenish a national cryptocurrency reserve, while simultaneously announcing that its central bank digital currency will be used in public procurement from August.
Strategic Mining Programme
The government of Kazakhstan has approved rules for what it calls ‘strategic digital mining’, a framework that allows companies to receive electricity quotas from energy-producing organizations at ceiling tariffs for up to ten years.
The arrangement comes with a condition. In exchange for those subsidized power allocations, participating miners must transfer a portion of their mined cryptocurrency to the Astana Hub autonomous cluster fund.
Those assets are then handed to the National Investment Corporation under the National Bank for trust management, where they will be used to replenish Kazakhstan’s National Strategic Crypto Reserve.
The process is handled through Kazakhstan’s E-licensing database. A dedicated commission reviews each application. If approved, the digital miner must sign an agreement with the Astana Hub fund within five working days and conclude a separate electricity purchase contract with the relevant energy-producing organization.
The structure gives Kazakhstan a direct stake in Bitcoin mining output without the government itself operating mining infrastructure, using private sector capacity as the mechanism for building sovereign crypto holdings.
Digital Tenge Goes Live for Public Spending in August
Separately, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin chaired a government meeting this week to review progress on pilot projects testing the digital tenge, Kazakhstan’s central bank digital currency. The conclusion was that the platform is ready for public procurement use.
From August, the digital tenge will be used for government purchases of goods including medicines, fuel and lubricants, and other material supplies, following the completion of integration between the digital currency platform and the Finance Ministry’s information systems.
Kazakhstan has issued 340 billion digital tenge, equivalent to approximately $626 million, across its CBDC programme. Twenty pilot projects have been completed. Ten are currently underway. Fifty more are in preparation.
The government has also mandated use of the digital tenge for eight categories of budget expenditure covering projects worth more than 100 million tenge, approximately $184,000, including infrastructure construction, budget lending, subsidies, grant financing, and procurement by the National Bank and quasi-state entities.
The Transparency Problem
Officials identified end-to-end traceability of public funds as the main challenge to wider adoption. While digital tenge transactions can be tracked from budget allocation to main contractors, subcontractors are not yet equipped to use smart contracts, partly because current legislation does not require them to.
The Ministry of National Economy has prepared legislative amendments to establish the legal framework for mandatory smart contract use, which would extend traceability throughout the full public spending chain rather than stopping at the primary contractor level.
Related: Kazakhstan to Invest $350 Million in Crypto Through Infrastructure Companies
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