Kazakhstan launches Alem Crypto Fund with first investment in BNB

Kazakhstan has established a state-backed crypto reserve in partnership with Binance, marking the nation’s newest transfer into digital property.

The preliminary digital asset in the fund’s portfolio is BNB (BNB), the utility token that drives transactions, charges, and governance on Binance’s blockchain, in keeping with a Monday announcement on the Kazakhstan authorities’s website.

The announcement didn’t specify how a lot BNB was bought to seed the fund, nor did it give any particulars about what different crypto investments would possibly observe.

The fund, known as Alem Crypto Fund, was created by the Ministry of Synthetic Intelligence and Digital Growth and is managed by Qazaqstan Enterprise Group below the Astana Worldwide Monetary Centre (AIFC).

“The first goal of the fund is to make long-term investments in digital property and to construct strategic reserves,” the announcement reads.

Binance has been a detailed associate of the Kazakhstan authorities since 2022, when its then CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Digital Growth to assist develop the nation’s crypto regulatory framework.

The information was introduced lower than per week after Kazakhstan rolled out its personal tenge-backed stablecoin, KZTE, on the Solana community via a partnership with Mastercard, Intebix, and Eurasian Financial institution.

Associated: The proposed US Bitcoin strategic reserve, explained

Kazakhstan continues to evolve its crypto insurance policies

Kazakhstan, a Central Asian nation of about 20 million folks, has lengthy been a major hub for crypto mining. In 2021, it ranked second globally by Bitcoin hashrate — the overall computing energy utilized by miners to safe the community and course of transactions.

In 2024, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev known as for regulators to undertake a extra clear authorized framework round digital property after 36 unlicensed exchanges were shut down in the nation.

In Could 2025, the nation unveiled plans for “CryptoCity,” a pilot zone permitting crypto funds. Earlier this month, Tokayev known as for a strategic crypto reserve and a “full-fledged ecosystem of digital property,” with laws to be drafted earlier than 2026.

The announcement got here a couple of months after a June report from Cointelegraph that the Nationwide Financial institution of Kazakhstan was contemplating plans for a state-run crypto reserve to be funded with seized property and state mining revenues.