Kazakhstan court bars Coinbase, HTX, BingX and three others from offering crypto services without a licence in its Astana financial hub

A court in Kazakhstan has ordered six crypto platforms, including Coinbase and HTX, to stop offering services without a licence inside the country's Astana International Financial Centre. The Astana Financial Services Authority (AFSA), the hub's regulator, announced the AIFC Court injunctions on Tuesday, per Cointelegraph, and CoinDesk also reported the orders. The platforms named are BingX, Bitcoin.com, Huobi Global (HTX), BitMart, Coinbase and WEEX.

The orders bar the six from offering or marketing unlicensed digital asset services within the AIFC and from distributing mobile apps for them there, per CoinDesk. They also bind Google and Apple as app store operators, though the court did not issue a separate injunction against the two companies and said AFSA should first discuss the necessary steps with them. The court entered a default judgment because the operators did not respond within the required time.

The AIFC is a financial zone in the capital with its own court, regulator and legal framework, per CoinDesk; Kazakhstan's National Bank oversees crypto providers outside it, per Cointelegraph. In a September 15 judgment, Justice Sir Stephen Richards said the injunctions apply only to the AIFC and to users located there, per CoinDesk, so this is not a nationwide ban. LBank, originally a seventh defendant, was removed on September 18 after blocking access in Kazakhstan.

AFSA warned more than 20 platforms in 2025; nine restricted app access voluntarily and seven said they would seek licences, per Cointelegraph. AFSA chief executive Evgeniya Bogdanova called the decision "the result of extensive and consistent efforts by AFSA's Supervision and Enforcement teams." Coinbase, BingX and HTX had not responded to Cointelegraph's requests for comment.