On October 20, 2026, the Astana Financial Services Authority disclosed injunctions against the operators of BingX, Bitcoin.com, Huobi Global (HTX), BitMart, Coinbase and WEEX. The regulator’s announcement concerns a September 15 judgment, varied on September 18, restricting unlicensed digital asset services and mobile-app distribution within the Astana International Financial Centre.
AFSA’s publication record dates the announcement to October 20 at 09:44 UTC, a disclosure of injunctions issued the previous month. The underlying orders set out the platforms’ obligations and the territory they cover. They also specify the conditions under which Apple and Google become bound, limiting what AFSA’s account establishes about access restrictions.
The injunction stops at the AIFC boundary
The varied order restrains the operators from providing, offering or marketing digital asset services on AIFC territory, or to users located there, without the required authorization. A separate provision covers distribution: the operators cannot make mobile applications available through any platform for unauthorized services in that territory or to those users. Both the services and the distribution of their apps fall under the restriction.
The injunction does not cover Kazakhstan nationwide. In the original judgment, the court explains why changes in national legislation required narrower relief. Amendments to the Law on Digital Assets took effect on May 1, 2026. They deleted Article 11 and introduced a detailed national regime through Article 12-1. The judgment reads that change as assigning the wider regulatory role to the National Bank.
AFSA’s authority over unlicensed activity inside the centre remains the basis for the restraints. The court gave AFSA permission to seek a variation if it could present a properly reasoned basis for broader terms. AFSA would have to make another application to pursue that relief. The permission itself does not extend the order’s territorial reach: its operative wording still identifies the AIFC and users located there.
LBank’s operator took a separate route out of the proceedings. AFSA says it independently blocked access to services in Kazakhstan, after which the court removed it from the order on September 18. The regulator describes that operator’s action as Kazakhstan-wide. The service and distribution clauses in the varied order impose a narrower geographic restriction on the operators that remain subject to the injunction.
Apple and Google are bound upon service
The varied order directs that notice be served on Google and Apple. Upon service, they become bound by the judgment and order as though they had been parties to the claim. The operative wording makes service a condition of that obligation. AFSA’s announcement says it will send the orders to the app-store operators; it does not record that service has been completed.
The court declined to grant the separate app-store injunction AFSA sought. The platform operators had judgment entered against them by default. Apple and Google were not themselves parties in default. The judge questioned the legal basis for an independent injunction through that procedure and whether the court should grant one without first giving the companies an opportunity to make representations.
Instead, the judgment calls for dialogue between AFSA and the app-store operators about the specific steps needed to prevent unlawful activity. It leaves practical measures to that engagement in the first instance, while the order sets out how Apple and Google become bound. The disclosed documents do not show a completed app-removal operation under these orders.
Once bound, the app-store operators face a possible contempt finding if they knowingly permit the platforms to breach the injunction, the judgment says. It gives knowingly allowing distribution through their stores in breach of the restriction as an example. Apple and Google also have a separate right to ask the court to set aside or vary the judgment or order, provided they acknowledge service under the court rules.
Default judgment and the enforcement campaign
The judgment records that the named operators failed to file an acknowledgment of service or a defence within the required time. The court entered a default judgment without their participation at trial. LBank’s later removal changed which operators remained subject to it. The revised order names the other platforms and retains the restrictions on their services and application distribution.
The varied order also makes the remaining operators jointly and severally liable for AFSA’s costs of KZT 1,995,479.95. The order identifies this as the claimant’s costs of the proceedings, a litigation-cost award separate from the operating restrictions. It does not allocate compensation to customers of the platforms or provide a mechanism for returning their assets.
AFSA says the litigation followed written warnings sent to more than 20 crypto platforms in 2025. Court proceedings began in early 2026 against platforms that continued operating without a licence. According to the announcement, nine platforms voluntarily restricted application access in Kazakhstan through Google Play and the Apple App Store. AFSA withdrew its claims against those platforms after they imposed the restrictions.
A further seven platforms expressed an intention to obtain an AFSA licence to operate digital asset trading facilities, according to the regulator. Those statements concern an intention to seek authorization, not an issued licence. AFSA reports them separately from the platforms that voluntarily restricted access and from the remaining named operators now subject to the injunctions.
The restraints cover customers’ access to unlicensed services and the apps distributing them within the AIFC. AFSA also warns that clients of unlicensed platforms lack the protections applicable to licensed firms for safeguarding assets, information disclosure, complaints handling and dispute resolution. Its announcement provides no completed-service date for Apple or Google and no confirmed implementation date for app-store restrictions under these orders.
