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The National Bank of Kazakhstan sold short-term notes as digital tokens for the first time on November 9, using the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) as the venue for a hybrid auction that combined conventional and tokenized instruments in a single offering.
The tokenized tranche accounted for 10 billion tenge — roughly $22.3 million — or one-fifth of the issue’s total face value of 50 billion tenge (about $111.7 million). Demand at the auction reached 70.2 billion tenge at face value, approximately 40 percent above the amount on offer. Because the notes were sold at a discount, accepted bids totalled 48.1 billion tenge in proceeds, of which 9.6 billion tenge came from the tokenized portion. The weighted average annual yield was set at 15.72 percent.
The central bank said running conventional and tokenized notes through the same auction allowed it to apply identical pricing rules to both forms while stress-testing how the digital platform performs alongside the existing securities market. It described the exercise as a step toward tokenizing other government securities.
KASE set November 11, 2026 as the settlement date and the start of the notes’ 91-day term, with redemption scheduled to begin on February 10, 2027. Ownership of the tokenized notes is recorded on KASE’s digital platform, with a corresponding entry held by the Central Securities Depository. Clearing and settlement for auction trades are handled by the KASE Clearing Centre. The central bank remains responsible for repaying all noteholders regardless of the form in which the notes were issued.
Regulatory groundwork and earlier milestones
Kazakhstan’s rules governing the issuance and trading of digital financial assets took effect on May 1, 2026. The central bank said KASE was the first entity it registered to operate both a digital financial asset platform and a digital asset trading platform under that framework.
The auction follows a series of preparatory moves by the exchange. In April, Adil Mukhamejanov, chair of KASE’s management board, told the Kazakhstan Finance Day forum in New York that the exchange was working to digitize existing financial instruments and issue new securities directly in digital form. On October 27, telecommunications company ALTA Telecom issued interest-bearing digital securities on the same platform, providing an early private-sector test of the infrastructure before the central bank’s own debut.
The November 9 auction represents the first time a Kazakhstani sovereign issuer has placed debt in tokenized form, and the central bank’s framing of it as a trial suggests further digital issuance is planned once the settlement and custody mechanics have been evaluated.