Kazakhstan’s central bank is collaborating with stablecoin titan Tether to look into launching a digital currency linked to the national currency and bringing real-world assets onto decentralized ledger infrastructure.
The National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK), Tether, and the Alatau City Authority executed a memorandum of understanding to investigate stablecoins, asset tokenizing, and decentralized finance, according to a press release issued on Wednesday.
One primary objective will involve a prospective stablecoin pegged to the Kazakhstani tenge. The coalition intends to examine how comparable tokens function internationally, determine potential use cases, and formulate a proposal for a test run. This agreement remains purely exploratory and does not constitute a formal decision to issue the stablecoin.
Additionally, the alliance places tokenization squarely on the agenda. Tokenization creates blockchain-backed equivalents of assets, which can enable anything from real estate to bonds to be traded, transferred, or utilized as collateral via digital networks. The participants will ascertain which asset classes prove appropriate and organize a pilot program within Alatau, a municipality operating under a specialized legal framework created partly to foster financial technology.
Tether’s Hadron framework, which supplies infrastructure for creating and administering tokenized assets, represents one technology under evaluation for the initiative.
Tether is widely recognized as the creator of USDT, the premier U.S. dollar stablecoin globally with roughly $140 billion currently circulating. The firm also produces XAUT, a roughly $3.3 billion tokenized gold asset backed by physical bullion secured inside vaults located in Switzerland.
The corporation has expanded significantly past stablecoins, putting capital into commodities, energy, tokenization systems, and payments as it strives to construct an expansive digital-asset and financial enterprise.
Kazakhstan has progressively developed its digital-asset regulatory framework while maintaining active central bank participation throughout the process.
“As part of piloting tokenization projects, we intend to thoroughly study international best practices in stablecoin issuance and real-world asset tokenization,” NBK Deputy Governor Binur Zhalenov stated.
Furthermore, Tether and Kazakh officials will conduct educational workshops focused on stablecoin issuance, reserves, and tokenization tailored for government agency personnel and central bank staff.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/10/07/tether-tapped-by-kazakhstan-s-central-bank-to-explore-stablecoin-and-tokenization.
