Kazakhstan's AIFC Court Orders Injunctions Against Coinbase, BingX and Four Other Crypto Platforms

Sept. 15 Order, Amended Three Days Later

Kazakhstan's Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) Court has ordered injunctions against six crypto exchange operators, directing Coinbase, BingX, Bitcoin.com, Huobi Global (HTX), BitMart and WEEX to stop providing digital asset services without a license. The Astana Financial Services Authority (AFSA), the AIFC's regulator, sued the operators over unlicensed activity and published the ruling's details on Tuesday. The court's published judgments trace the sequence: an original judgment on Sept. 15 named seven platforms, LBank included, and after LBank's operator restricted access to its services in Kazakhstan on its own initiative, the court amended the judgment on Sept. 18 and left six subject to the injunctions. The restrictions cover providing, offering and advertising digital asset services within the AIFC without the required license, along with distributing mobile applications intended to deliver those services. The AIFC is Kazakhstan's special financial zone in Astana, with its own court and financial regulator, and the order also reaches beyond its borders in one direction: Google and Apple are covered as app store operators, with AFSA preparing to send both companies the documents needed to enforce geographic access restrictions on the six platforms' applications. Retail onboarding in the country runs heavily through mobile channels, where buying crypto with Apple Pay has become a common on-ramp, so the distribution clause may bite harder than the trading ban itself. The court additionally ordered the six operators to pay approximately 1.995 million Kazakhstani tenge in legal costs and court fees. AFSA has not disclosed whether the six platforms have ceased operations across the rest of Kazakhstan; the on-record restrictions concern unauthorized services within the AIFC and access through the relevant application stores.

A Year of Warnings Before the Court Move

The path to the ruling ran through a long enforcement runway. AFSA chief executive Evgeniya Bogdanova said the decision caps work by the regulator's Supervision and Enforcement teams that began with written warnings to crypto companies dating back to 2025. Over that period the regulator contacted more than 20 platforms to explain the licensing requirements applicable to digital asset services, from spot markets to contract trading in crypto, and to inform operators about the bans on advertising and serving customers without authorization. When some operators continued running without permission, AFSA took the matter to the AIFC Court in early 2026. Compliance happened voluntarily in most cases: nine platforms restricted access to their applications in Kazakhstan through Google Play and Apple's App Store during the process, and AFSA withdrew its claims against them, while another seven told the regulator they intend to obtain licenses to operate digital asset trading facilities. AFSA did not identify those applicants or confirm whether any have since received authorization. “This court decision is the result of extensive and consistent efforts by AFSA's Supervision and Enforcement teams,” Bogdanova said in the regulator's announcement. The judgment also went past the licensing question. The court addressed the compliance obligations licensed businesses must meet, including customer identification, anti-money laundering controls, counterterrorist financing measures and ongoing regulatory supervision, and observed that operators offering comparable services without authorization avoid the same regulatory expenses. Comment requests sent to BingX, Coinbase and Huobi Global remained unanswered as of publication.

App Stores Become the Enforcement Lever

In our reading, the distribution clause is the operative part of this order. Blocking a website is reversible within minutes; removing an application from Google Play and the App Store in one geography cuts the main retail on-ramp and is far harder to undo. The measure also fits a wider campaign: national authorities had already blocked access to more than 1,100 unlicensed cryptocurrency exchange platforms in the year to January 2026, AFSA named HTX, OKX, Bitget and MEXC in an April 29 warning about the need for regulatory approval, and the authority has worked with the National Bank of Kazakhstan since May 2026 on unauthorized digital asset activity. The National Bank oversees digital-asset service providers operating outside the AIFC, so the two regulators together cover the whole market. AFSA's standing warning to users is unchanged: balances held on an unlicensed platform carry no protections for crypto wallet custody, information disclosure, complaint handling or dispute resolution, and the regulator's public register lists which companies hold licenses. For customers of the six named platforms, the practical question is fund access; our walkthrough of cashing out on Coinbase covers the withdrawal mechanics while the legal picture settles.