From Mining Hub to Payment Gateway: How Kazakhstan Is Bridging Crypto and Everyday Spending

Kazakhstan’s push into the crypto space just took a major step forward. The country’s first cryptocurrency cards have entered testing phase, marking a significant shift from pure trading and mining infrastructure toward practical payment integration. Here’s what’s actually happening and why it matters.

The Crypto Card Ecosystem Takes Shape

The payment solution rolled out through a collaboration between Eurasian Bank, Mastercard, and Intebix—a local exchange based in Astana. During the recent Astana Finance Days forum, authorities unveiled the pilot program with some interesting mechanics:

Users can convert their stablecoins (primarily tether/USDT) directly at point-of-sale through Mastercard and Apple Pay terminals. Transactions execute in Kazakhstani tenge with just a 1% fee, which is competitive compared to traditional cross-border payment corridors. The current setup includes a $1,000 daily spending cap, while cash withdrawals and peer transfers remain locked until further testing confirms the system’s stability.

What makes this noteworthy: the entire transaction flow—from digital asset storage through Intebix wallets to point-of-sale conversion—stays within Kazakhstan’s jurisdiction and regulatory framework. This isn’t a workaround; it’s a deliberate, supervised implementation.

Why Now? The Regulatory Green Light

Kazakhstan’s National Bank gave formal approval in early June, but the groundwork started months earlier. The country transitioned from a mining-centric crypto economy (remember when Chinese miners flocked here?) into something more sophisticated: a regulated digital asset infrastructure.

The approval itself reflects pragmatic policymaking. Rather than banning or restricting crypto, authorities recognized three realities:

• Mining operations generate genuine economic activity and tax revenue
• Consumer demand for alternative payment rails is real
• Stablecoins solve the volatility problem that makes daily payments risky

So instead of fighting it, they’re channeling it through licensed providers at the Astana International Financial Center. Intebix and similar platforms now operate within clear guardrails—registered, audited, and accountable.

The Bigger Picture: Crypto Cards as Financial Infrastructure

This isn’t just about novelty. For banks like Eurasian Bank, the cryptocurrency cards represent a response to genuine customer demand. As Lyazzat Satieva, the bank’s board chair, put it: institutions adopted crypto “for practical reasons like customer demand,” not trendiness.

Mastercard’s regional leadership echoed this sentiment, positioning the cards as “an important step towards integrating digital assets into everyday payments.” The payment network’s support matters—it signals that legacy financial infrastructure sees crypto integration as inevitable rather than speculative.

For Intebix, the exchange gets institutional credibility and custody responsibility. They’re not just a trading venue anymore; they’re the asset custodian and settlement layer for real transactions.

What Happens Next?

The pilot phase is testing three critical variables: whether the technology holds under real transaction volume, how users actually behave with crypto-backed payment cards, and whether inter-institutional coordination stays smooth during settlement.

If testing succeeds, expect the daily limit to increase, cash withdrawal features to activate, and possibly expansion into other stablecoins beyond USDT. The National Bank has already indicated openness to licensing additional platforms—meaning this ecosystem could scale beyond just Intebix.

For the broader crypto industry, Kazakhstan’s move reads as a proof-of-concept: you don’t need to choose between regulation and crypto adoption. You can have both if you build them together.

The cryptocurrency cards pilot represents exactly that—regulated innovation that treats digital assets not as speculative commodities but as functional payment infrastructure. Whether that model survives first contact with scale is what the testing phase will reveal.