Astana, 20 October. The court of the Astana International Financial Centre has banned six crypto platforms — BingX, Bitcoin.com, Huobi Global (HTX), BitMart, Coinbase and WEEX — from providing digital asset services in Kazakhstan because they hold no AIFC licence.
The operators are barred from providing, offering and advertising digital asset services and from distributing mobile apps or providing access to them in the country through any platform; the court also ordered restrictions on the distribution of their apps.
The list originally included seven platforms, but the LBank exchange itself shut off access to its services in Kazakhstan and was removed from the final list. Over the past year the centre's regulator, the AIFC Financial Services Regulatory Authority (AFSA), has sent written warnings to crypto platforms operating without a licence.
The AIFC is a financial centre in Astana with its own law, based on English law, and its own regulator and court. Crypto exchanges can operate legally in Kazakhstan only with a licence from the centre, so the ban is not a judgement on the exchanges themselves but a requirement to register under local rules.
Background: The court ruling also applies to Google and Apple as app store operators: they have been ordered to restrict access to these exchanges' services in Kazakhstan.
List of sources used: Bits.media, National Bank, Sputnik Kazakhstan
Artificial intelligence was used in preparing this material.
