Tether Signs Pact with National Bank of Kazakhstan to Study Tenge Stablecoin and Tokenization

Stablecoin operator Tether inked a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Bank of Kazakhstan and the Alatau City Authority to assess initiatives across tokenized assets, decentralized finance, and stablecoin architecture, according to an official statement on Oct. 7, 2026 ¹.

Under the arrangement, the trio plans to assess cross-border issuance benchmarks, outline prospective deployments, and formulate a formal proposal alongside a test framework for a stablecoin tied directly to the Kazakhstani tenge ¹. Kazakhstan's central bank oversees domestic monetary direction, transaction networks, and currency compliance, while the Alatau City Authority manages administration under a dedicated regulatory framework created to foster a Central Asian financial technology hub ¹. Tether, whose core asset is $USDT, is working to expand sovereign-grade digital rails even as it navigates scrutiny documented in previous reporting such as when Tether Freezes Nearly $550M in Iran-Linked USD₮ as US Sanctions Tighten.

Pilot Deployment and Hadron Integration

The initiative also seeks to establish a broader asset tokenization roadmap in Kazakhstan, which could incorporate Tether's tokenization toolset known as Hadron ¹. The involved institutions intend to determine target asset classes, draft a tokenization model, and initiate an initial trial run hosted inside the legal environment of Alatau ¹. Binur Zhalenov, Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, stated that maintaining overall systemic stability, clarity around transactions, and investor safeguards serve as foundational priorities during the experimentation phase ¹.

To facilitate the rollout, Tether and the regulatory bodies will organize training programs, instructional workshops, and technical seminars for central bank staff and public agencies ¹. The curriculum is set to focus on global digital asset ecosystems, backing reserve systems, and distributed ledger mechanics for real-world assets ¹.