Kazakhstan warns four global crypto exchanges over licenses

The Astana Financial Services Authority announced on Tuesday that HTX, Bitget, OKX and MEXC are offering services in Kazakhstan without Astana International Financial Center (AIFC) licenses. The regulator warned that using unlicensed platforms can lead to investment losses, personal data exposure and fraud.

Kazakh law requires crypto trading platforms to hold permits issued under the AIFC legal framework. The AIFC operates as the country’s financial hub in Astana and hosts authorized cryptocurrency exchanges. Authorities plan to expand licensing beyond the AIFC’s current jurisdiction.

The AFSA noted that organizing digital asset exchange activities without an AIFC permit is prohibited and that a platform’s global reach does not exempt it from local rules. The regulator advised consumers to check its public register before using any crypto service.

The AFSA’s public register currently lists 30 companies offering digital asset services, including licensed operations from Bybit and a local subsidiary of Binance. The authority does not maintain a separate blacklist of illegal providers.

Separately, the Financial Monitoring Agency reported enforcement actions against unlicensed trading. Nearly two dozen illegal crypto exchanges were closed in the past year and hundreds of unauthorized operations were dismantled in earlier campaigns.

The Financial Monitoring Agency described RAKS Exchange as the largest shadow crypto service in the Commonwealth of Independent States, reporting it processed more than $224 million in transactions for over 200 drug sellers across Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Moldova. Investigators examined more than 4,000 crypto wallets linked to drug trafficking and darknet markets. When authorities shut down RAKS in September 2025, they froze about 9.7 million USDT and later confiscated 3.2 million Tether.

The AFSA reiterated that only entities licensed by the authority may conduct regulated activities in or from the AIFC, including services related to digital assets, and urged users to verify authorization status through the online register.