Kazakhstan formalized an exchange it calls 'strategic digital mining': miners get 10-year electricity contracts at a capped price and transfer a mandatory monthly share of output, routed into a national strategic crypto reserve.
Kazakhstan Approves Cheap Power in Exchange for Miners' Crypto
24 July 2026 - 06:50 CEST
By Oihyun Kim
The rules, approved on 18 Jul, send the assets first to the Astana Hub autonomous cluster fund, a government-created non-profit, and then into trust management with the National Investment Corporation, the central bank's investment arm. The state accrues holdings without mining itself.
How the cut works
Each month the mining pool distributes digital assets among its miners. The miner then subtracts its electricity bill and its delivery costs, both including VAT and converted into a digital-asset equivalent. The miner transfers 10% of the remainder to the Astana Hub fund. The rate applies to that net figure, not to gross output. Delivery costs cover use of the national grid, keeping generating capacity on standby and balancing supply against demand. A finance ministry order sets how the assets are priced.
Miners get nothing back. Under the standard agreement each participant signs with the fund, the assets are handed over for free, with no claim on the fund or on the reserve in return.
The reserve is the state's holding vehicle, and it can put the assets into crypto, into crypto-based derivatives, and into companies that build or invest in the sector. A participant keeps one wallet reserved for the assets mined under the scheme, and may run a separate mining business outside it on separate books.
Who can apply
To qualify, an applicant must own its data centre, and the site must have at least 150MW of capacity. The site must connect to the grid through a substation of 35kV or above and be cleared to draw at least 1MW. Every mining machine must run at 150 terahashes per second or faster.
The applicant must owe nothing in taxes, pension or social contributions, carry no liens, freezes or transfer bans on its property, hold contracts with at least two internet providers, and keep a repair shop on site with staff who can document their qualifications. Only one plant is cleared to supply the scheme, Ekibastuz GRES-1, which is owned by the state's sovereign wealth fund and has 300MW available in total.
Transfers and audit
The miner must hand over what it owes to the Astana Hub fund by the 25th of the following month, then tell the regulator and the fund which wallet addresses it used. The fund can check those against the blockchain. An independent audit follows by 1 Apr each year, and any shortfall it finds must be made up within 30 calendar days.
The rules take effect 10 calendar days after they appear in the official gazette. Local reports differ, putting the start at 28 Jul and at 1 Aug, and neither gives the gazette date the count runs from. The 28 May resolution that ordered these rules was never released to the public.
The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance ranked Kazakhstan fifth by surveyed Bitcoin mining activity in April 2025.
