Kazakhstan court bars six crypto exchanges from unlicensed operations
Regulation & Gov ·
The Astana International Financial Centre Court has ordered Coinbase, BingX, Bitcoincom, HTX, BitMart and WEEX to stop offering digital asset services inside the hub without proper authorization.
Kazakhstan's Astana Financial Services Authority disclosed the injunctions in an official statement, confirming that the AIFC Court barred the six platforms from marketing digital asset services or distributing their mobile applications within the financial centre absent the required licenses, according to AFSA's own notice. The ruling was first handed down on September 15 and then revised on September 18, when LBank was dropped from the order after the platform cut off access to its services for users in Kazakhstan, a detail laid out in reporting from WuBlockchain.
The order functions as a licensing enforcement measure rather than an outright ban on the underlying assets: it targets unauthorized distribution channels, including the mobile apps through which these exchanges reach users in the AIFC. Coverage from DeFiPrime notes that the injunctions extend potential liability to Apple and Google once they are formally served, since both companies host the listed apps on their respective stores and would be expected to act on the court's directive.
The case has drawn attention beyond Kazakhstan's own regulatory notices. Coindesk reported on the court's decision to restrict the six named platforms from operating in the Astana financial hub, while separate tracking from Leviathan News has followed the access restrictions now facing Coinbase and HTX as a direct result of the ruling. Four distinct sources have corroborated the core elements of the injunctions, pointing to a consistent account of which platforms are affected and the licensing rationale behind the court's action.
What remains unclear is how enforcement will proceed in practice — whether Apple and Google will act to restrict app access once served, whether any of the five remaining platforms will follow LBank's path of blocking Kazakhstan users to seek removal from the order, and whether AFSA will pursue further injunctions against other unlicensed operators in the AIFC. No timeline for compliance or potential penalties beyond the injunctions themselves has been disclosed.