AIFC court crypto injunctions bar Coinbase and five others
Kazakhstan's Astana financial centre has won court orders stopping six unlicensed crypto platforms, including Coinbase, from serving users inside its jurisdiction.
AIFC court crypto injunctions now apply to six major trading platforms in Kazakhstan's financial hub. The Astana Financial Services Authority (AFSA) said on Tuesday, Oct. 20, that the court of the Astana International Financial Centre had barred them from offering or advertising unlicensed digital asset services there.
What happened
The court granted AFSA's claims on Sept. 15 in a judgment covering BingX, Bitcoin.com, Huobi Global (HTX), BitMart, Coinbase, LBank and WEEX. LBank's operator later blocked access in Kazakhstan on its own, so on Sept. 18 the court amended its order to drop that firm. The remaining six are covered.
The ruling also reaches Google and Apple as operators of app stores, which must geographically restrict access to the listed platforms. The order covers the financial centre and users located there, not the whole country; Kazakhstan's National Bank supervises digital asset providers outside the AIFC.
AFSA said the campaign started in 2025, when it sent written warnings to more than 20 crypto platforms. Nine of them restricted access to their apps in Kazakhstan, and seven said they would apply for licenses, so the regulator withdrew its claims against those nine.
Why it matters
AFSA said it began court proceedings in early 2026 against platforms that kept operating without a licence, and that it will forward the orders to the two companies running the main app stores. Since May 2026, it has been working on the issue with the National Bank of Kazakhstan, the national regulator for digital asset activity.
The court said unlicensed services undermine the centre's rules and create unfair competition for licensed firms, which carry the cost of anti-money-laundering checks and customer due diligence. AFSA chief executive Evgeniya Bogdanova said the decision was the result of "extensive and consistent efforts" by its supervision and enforcement teams.
For users, AFSA stressed that unlicensed platforms lack safeguards such as asset protection, disclosure, complaints handling and dispute resolution. Coinbase, BingX and Huobi did not immediately respond to requests for comment, Cointelegraph reported.
Kazakhstan has been trying to pull crypto activity into supervised channels, from licensing to a stablecoin pilot we covered in our Tether Kazakhstan report. AIFC court crypto injunctions add a stick to those carrots, and they echo moves elsewhere in Asia, such as the Taiwan block on Coinbase and Kalshi.
What's next
This is not Kazakhstan's first crackdown. Cointelegraph noted that in 2023 the country's Financial Monitoring Agency cut off nearly 1,000 unregistered crypto exchanges serving its citizens. The difference now is that a court in a common-law financial centre has issued named injunctions, which gives the regulator a clearer legal tool against global brands.
The next steps are practical: whether Apple and Google remove or geo-block the apps for AIFC users, and whether any of the six apply for a local license. AFSA's full statement is on its website.
AFSA also pointed users to its public register, which lists the firms it has licensed to provide digital asset services in the financial centre, so customers can check a platform before signing up.
Other regulators often copy enforcement tools that work. If the AIFC court crypto injunctions hold, the approach of naming app stores alongside exchanges could spread.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.