National Bank of Kazakhstan

The National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) is the country's sovereign central monetary authority, and it has become one of the most consequential institutional actors in the Solana ecosystem — not by launching a DeFi protocol, but by using its regulatory sandbox to sponsor Solana-based financial infrastructure at the nation-state level.

What It Is

Founded on April 13, 1993, following Kazakhstan's independence from the Soviet Union, the NBK is responsible for monetary policy, currency regulation, financial stability, and payment system oversight across Kazakhstan. What sets it apart in the blockchain context is the active, proactive stance it has taken toward digital assets — going beyond passive licensing to directly shape the architecture of Solana-based products launched under its regulatory umbrella.

Governor Timur Suleimenov has been the public face of this push, describing Kazakhstan's agenda as a comprehensive digital finance strategy rather than isolated experimentation.

The Digital Assets Regulatory Sandbox

The NBK's primary lever in the crypto space is its Digital Assets Regulatory Sandbox — a structured environment that allows licensed participants to test and operate real financial products under a special regulatory regime, without bearing full commercial compliance burdens. The sandbox is designed as a controlled proving ground: participants get regulatory clarity and institutional backing while the NBK monitors outcomes before broader rollout.

As of September 2025, the NBK had selected eight pilot projects across four focus areas within the sandbox. The most significant of these is the KZTE tenge stablecoin.

KZTE (Evo): Kazakhstan's First National Stablecoin on Solana

On September 23, 2025, the NBK announced the launch of Evo — ticker KZTE — Kazakhstan's first tenge-pegged stablecoin, built on the Solana blockchain. The stablecoin is issued by Intebix, an AIFC-registered digital asset exchange, in partnership with Eurasian Bank. Solana provides the blockchain infrastructure; Mastercard connects KZTE with global stablecoin issuers and enables crypto card payment rails.

Solana was selected for its throughput capacity and low transaction costs — properties that matter for a stablecoin intended to serve everyday payment and crypto-fiat conversion use cases. KZTE maintains a 1:1 peg to the Kazakhstani tenge and is backed by national currency reserves held by the issuing entities under NBK supervision.

The stablecoin's use cases include expansion of the crypto-to-fiat channel, enabling users to convert cryptocurrency into tenge-denominated stablecoins and conduct trading operations; crypto card payments accessible through Mastercard's network; and bridging DeFi activity with Kazakhstan's traditional banking infrastructure through Eurasian Bank.

Talgat Dossanov, founder of Intebix, noted at the launch that the KZTE project represents "the first case where the central bank plays a proactive role in stablecoin issuance" — distinguishing it from regimes where a central bank merely tolerates a private stablecoin. The NBK is not a passive bystander but a co-architect of the regulatory conditions that make KZTE possible.

Digital Tenge: Kazakhstan's CBDC

Separate from KZTE, the NBK has been building out a full central bank digital currency — the digital tenge — since at least 2021. Development proceeded through a pilot phase, a feasibility study completed in 2022, and a Phase One implementation reported in late 2023.

The first live retail transaction using a Digital Tenge Card was completed on November 15, 2023, at a POS terminal — making Kazakhstan one of the first nations in Eurasia to conduct a real-world CBDC retail payment. The digital tenge is programmable, supports smart contracts, and is accessible via Mastercard and Visa payment cards for in-store and online use.

The NBK planned a three-stage rollout with offline payments in 2024 and cross-border trade settlement targeting 2025. The digital tenge operates on the NBK's own infrastructure rather than on Solana directly, but it demonstrates the institutional depth behind Kazakhstan's digital currency strategy.

The Solana Economic Zone Kazakhstan (SEZ KZ)

In June 2025, the Solana Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Kazakhstan to establish the Solana Economic Zone Kazakhstan — the first Web3-focused economic zone in Central Asia. The NBK is involved in shaping the broader regulatory framework being developed to extend crypto rules beyond the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) perimeter.

The SEZ KZ rests on three pillars:

Tokenized capital markets: A pilot program involving the Astana International Exchange (AIX), Solana Foundation, Jupiter, and Intebix to tokenize securities on Solana and integrate them into Kazakhstan's existing capital markets infrastructure.

Blockchain talent development: A nationwide education program in Rust programming and blockchain engineering, developed in partnership with Kazakh universities and Astana Hub.

Startup support: Regulatory backing, infrastructure, and business incentives to attract international Web3 companies to Kazakhstan.

At the Astana International Forum 2025, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced a complementary initiative called CryptoCity — a pilot zone for testing everyday cryptocurrency payments under a regulated sandbox framework.

Security and Audit Status

No public third-party audit of the KZTE stablecoin or its reserve backing has been disclosed. The project operates under NBK regulatory oversight as a sandbox participant, which provides institutional accountability but differs from independently audited reserve proofs. As the sandbox matures and KZTE moves toward broader deployment, formal attestation frameworks would be expected.

Significance for Solana

The National Bank of Kazakhstan's engagement with Solana is one of the most substantial sovereign institutional validations the network has received anywhere in the world. By selecting Solana as the blockchain for Kazakhstan's first national stablecoin, and by anchoring a national Web3 economic zone on Solana infrastructure, the NBK has signaled that Solana is viable for regulated, state-adjacent financial products — not just permissionless DeFi. For a network competing for institutional adoption, a central bank serving a country of 19 million people choosing Solana for its stablecoin sandbox is a meaningful data point. The SEZ KZ's tokenization pilot, which brings Solana into Kazakhstan's securities market infrastructure, extends this signal further into traditional finance territory.