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The National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan (NBK) launched a one-week DigitalTenge central bank digital currency (CBDC) proof-of-concept (PoC) involving NBK staff and local merchants. (This is much like the National Bank of Ukraine 2019 PoC.) The NBK PoC will test basic payment scenarios (e.g., C2B, P2P), non-functional requirements, and programmability. For example, it will test special-purpose tokens on which consumer might purchase only from the "white list" of merchants or products, within particular time period etc. In parallel, the NBK is finalizing its research and development for offline and advanced smart contract deployment on its platform.

Having secured a permanent license by Kazakhstan's AIFC Financial Services Authority (AFSA) last year, Binance is now launching a local digital asset platform in the country. The new platform will offer Kazakhstani users exchange and conversion services, deposit and withdrawal of fiat, and custody of crypto assets. The suite of services and number of assets available for trading will expand going forward.

"The final decision on the Digital Tenge project has not yet been made, but is expected to be announced by the end of 2022, the project's head Ainur Kenzhayeva said in an interview with The Astana Times."

The National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) published an update on its digital tenge project. It includes the high-level architecture of the platform, scenarios where digital tenge is making an impact, and the preliminary results of the pilot launched in November 2023. The white paper also lays out the project's plans for 2024 and 2025, including expanding the platform's functionality and enhance the coverage of use cases. All of this is presented in great detail, making the NBK, in my view, an icon of central bank transparency.

The National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) announced that the next step in its "Digital Tenge" central bank digital currency (CBDC) project will be to involve stakeholders and international partners in discussions about design and pilot scenarios. In that regard, the NBK has launched a Digital Tenge Hub dialogue platform to provide training and certification of market participants, conduct design sessions to discuss methodological aspects, as well as connect new participants to test scripts on the Digital Tenge platform. It will be open to all market participants. The overall plan is, by July 2022, to develop a model to inform a decision to launch a digital tenge (or not) by the end of 2022.

Early adopters of Kazakhstan's digital tenge central bank digital currency (CBDC) who are customers of Altyn Bank, Eurasian Bank and Halyk Bank can apply for virtual and plastic CBDC cards and use them for purchases across Mastercard and Visa global networks. Additionally, they can withdraw cash at ATMs, link their cards to Google Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, monitor their CBDC card balance and transaction history through mobile banking; and access other related services.

CoinShares said 65% of global bitcoin mining happens in China, and the country's Sichuan province alone produces 54% of global hash rate. The remaining 35% of bitcoin miners are spread from the U.S. to Russia and Kazakhstan.

"The Digital Tenge project is exploring different dimensions of such interoperability. From the creation of well-structured APIs to collaboration with international payment systems' networks, we are paving the way for a seamless experience. Excitingly, some of these innovations will be launched this November in production-grade mode. The team is also working on the development of an interoperability layer, allowing end-users to transact with CBDC within our network and with users outside the network."

SODA CEO and co-founder Chris Ostrowski and I wrote an article for CoinDesk on the "test and deploy" approach to retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) project management. The "test and deploy" aims at narrow use cases, allowing for an abbreviated and more agile product development cycle, with rapid iterations through the proof-of-concept, prototype and pilot phases. This allows retail CBDC to be issued to real end users in a safe and controlled manner to offer insight into user demand and experience.