Tether tapped by Kazakhstan’s central bank to explore stablecoin and tokenization

Kazakhstan's central bank is teaming up with stablecoin giant Tether to explore issuing a digital token tied to the country's currency and putting real-world assets on blockchain rails.

The National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK), Tether and the Alatau City Authority signed a memorandum of understanding to study stablecoins, asset tokenization and decentralized finance, the parties said Wednesday in a press release.

One focus will be a potential stablecoin pegged to the Kazakhstani tenge. The group plans to study how similar tokens work elsewhere, identify possible uses and prepare a proposal for a pilot. The agreement is exploratory and does not amount to a decision to issue the stablecoin.

The partnership also puts tokenization on the agenda. Tokenization creates blockchain-based representations of assets, potentially allowing anything from bonds to real estate to be transferred, traded or used as collateral through digital networks. The parties will identify which types of assets could be suitable and plan a pilot in Alatau, a city operating under a special legal regime designed in part to encourage financial technology.

Tether's Hadron platform, which provides infrastructure for issuing and managing tokenized assets, is one technology being considered for the project.