At a meeting with representatives of the financial sector in Almaty on Friday, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of Kazakhstan, spoke about the current situation in the country’s cryptocurrency industry. The details of the speech were published on the official World Wide website of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan and translated by Coin:

Cryptocurrencies are an objective factor that cannot simply be ignored. Its possible impact on the current financial system must be clearly assessed.

President Tokayev speaks at a conference | Source: Akorda.kz

Then he added:

Therefore, work on creating a balanced regulatory environment for the creation of cryptocurrency exchanges in the country needs to continue. If not, it turns out we are number two in the world for cryptocurrencies [Bitcoin] Mining and we see practically no financial return.

According to the University of Cambridge, Kazakhstan’s share of the total hash rate of the Bitcoin (BTC) network is 18.10% – second in the world after the USA (35.40%) and higher than Russia (11.23%) ).

However, there are a large number of individuals mining Bitcoin with controversial legal entities in the country. By some estimates, gray area miners account for up to 50% of all crypto mining in Kazakhstan.

According to President Tokayev, the lack of crypto regulation has meant that the government has achieved very little tax revenue despite the industry’s strong growth in recent years. However, as a “representative of the financial system”, President Tokayev discussed the possibility of introducing a digital trend and reiterated his support for fintech development in Kazakhstan:

Our financial institutions must seize the opportunity and achieve ambitious goals. Not only copy the experiences of others, but also develop and promote new service formats beyond the borders of Kazakhstan. The state will do its best to encourage these initiatives.