Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev delivered his annual state-of-the-nation speech on September 8, 2025. In it, he announced a big plan to get Kazakhstan more involved in the digital asset economy, proposing the establishment of a State Digital Asset Fund, under the management of the National Bank’s Investment Corporation. This is a strategic move toward making digital assets a formal component of the country’s financial system.
According to a local report, the President instructed the national bank and the government to develop an investment plan worth up to $1 billion to support the advancement of technology. Tokayev also suggested that the state bank’s investment company set up a national digital asset fund. This fund’s goal is to build up strategic cryptocurrency reserves and add promising digital assets to the changing world of finance.
“It is advisable to create a State Fund of Digital Assets on the basis of the National Bank’s Investment Corporation. This structure will accumulate a strategic crypto reserve consisting of promising assets in the new digital financial system,” the President shared.
Tokayev also called for the creation of new methods to put bank liquidity into the economy and stressed the need for new banking laws. The proposed regulation aims to boost competition, bring in new players to the market, support the growth of fintech, and make it easier for digital assets to move around. He underlined how important it is to speed up the building of a whole digital asset ecosystem in Kazakhstan. Further, he also discussed the digital tenge, a digital currency that the national fund has used to pay for projects.
Kazakhstan’s digital asset ambitions aren’t new. The Central Asian nation has been focusing on various projects since the beginning of 2025. In June, the National Bank Chairman Timur Suleimenov acknowledged the country’s plans to create a state crypto reserve, saying that one possible approach was to house the reserve in a National Bank subsidiary that specializes in alternative investments.
Moreover, as a leading bitcoin mining nation in the world, it introduced the first spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in Central Asia in August. The Fonte Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund OEIC (BETF) was listed on the Astana International Exchange (AIX).