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Kazakhstan shut down 36 illegal crypto exchanges in 2024, seizing $112 million in assets and advancing Anti-Money Laundering efforts alongside its upcoming digital tenge launch.
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Kazakhstan took down 36 illegal cryptocurrency exchanges in 2024 amid ongoing efforts to combat money laundering in the region, a significant drop of 96.3% from 2023.
On Jan. 6, the Financial Monitoring Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan announced the shutdown of 36 crypto exchanges operating without proper authorization in 2024.
The agency noted that illegal crypto exchanges help facilitate money laundering by allowing unvetted fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat transfers. A translated statement from the agency said:
“Such entities (illegal crypto exchanges) do not identify their clients and do not identify suspicious transactions. Therefore, their services are often used by cyber crooks and drug traffickers.”
The 36 crypto exchanges, with a total turnover of roughly 60 billion Kazakhstani tenge ($112.8 million), “were destroyed,” according to the notice. Additionally, assets worth approximately 2.5 billion tenge ($4.8 million) were confiscated by authorities.
An ongoing crackdown on unlicensed crypto services
In 2023, Kazakhstan’s Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) blocked 980 unlicensed crypto exchanges and launched nine investigations into “illegal exchange operations” and money laundering in parallel.
Despite the crackdown, global exchanges with operational licenses, including Binance, Bybit, CaspianEx, Biteeu, ATAIX, Upbit and Xignal&MT, continue to operate legally in Kazakhstan.
Related: Telegram to open an office in Kazakhstan, boost regulatory compliance
The Kazakh agency has taken down more than 3,500 unlicensed crypto exchanges to date in collaboration with other government entities, including the National Security Committee and the Ministry of Culture and Information.
Out of the platforms that went offline, two were found operating pyramid schemes. Following legal action, authorities returned investments worth 545,000 USDt (USDT) to victims and froze an additional 120,000 USDT.
Kazakhstan nears 2025 CBDC launch
Kazakh authorities plan to continue partnering with international organizations to combat the criminal use of cryptocurrencies, improve transaction monitoring tools and impose legislation that penalizes money laundering avenues.
The country is also building its in-house central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital tenge. Development began in February 2023, with an initial launch deadline set for 2025.
The nation has reportedly collaborated with Visa and Mastercard, as well as local banks, to integrate the CBDC into plastic cards. “It lets you pay with a digital tenge from anywhere in the world, using Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and other gadgets,” according to Binur Zhalenov, the chairman of Kazakhstan’s National Payment Corporation.
Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025
This article first appeared at Cointelegraph.com News
