Kazakhstan’s central bank has put $100 million into cryptocurrency-focused funds and another $90 million into bitcoin-focused exchange-traded funds, according to a Bloomberg report recapped by Galaxy Research.
Brevan Howard Digital among the funds
The head of the central bank’s operations department announced the allocations at a conference in Almaty on Thursday.
The fund investments include Ege DeFi and Brevan Howard Digital, while the remaining $90 million went into ETFs focused on bitcoin.
In a separate interview with Kazinform, National Bank Deputy Governor Binur Zhalenov said that by the end of October about $190 million of the $700 million national strategic crypto reserve had been invested in hedge funds and exchange-traded funds that provide access to digital assets.
Inside the $700 million reserve
Zhalenov said the reserve was created in December 2025 and funded in equal parts from the National Bank’s gold and foreign exchange assets and the National Fund.
He added that the reserve will also be topped up with digital assets confiscated by court order and those obtained through strategic mining, though the legal changes for both are still being prepared.
Forbes Kazakhstan reported that the National Bank plans to grow the reserve to $1 billion, citing Batur Vakhidov, director of its monetary operations department.
Sovereigns step in as traders step out
Galaxy said Kazakhstan’s move follows a National Bank plan from March 2026 to allocate up to $350 million to bitcoin and crypto-related investments, along with a mining-funded reserve announced in July.
The firm framed the allocation as part of a wider trend in which sovereigns and wealth managers keep adding bitcoin exposure while macro and tactical traders sell.
According to Galaxy, spot ETF holdings fell 11% from peak to trough against a 53% fall in the price, and the funds have added 87,000 BTC since the June low.
