This article was compiled and organized by BlockWeeks
The head of the operations department of the Kazakhstan central bank announced at a conference held in Almaty on Thursday that the country will invest $100 million in several crypto-themed funds, including Ege DeFi and Brevan Howard Digital; in addition, it will invest an additional $90 million in Bitcoin-focused ETFs. This is the latest in a series of crypto-related investments and initiatives by this Central Asian country, whose reach has extended to direct capital allocation, Bitcoin mining, and the stablecoin KZTE backed by the national currency, the tenge.
From a national fund to a mining reserve: a complete national crypto roadmap
In September 2025, Kazakhstan announced the establishment of the Alem Fund—the country's state-backed crypto investment fund, whose initial position included Binance's BNB token. At almost the same time, the KZTE stablecoin was announced for issuance on Solana, with partners including Mastercard, Intebix, and Eurasian Bank. Since then, the country has successively announced multiple plans: in March 2026, it announced that the National Bank would allocate up to $350 million to Bitcoin and crypto-related investments; in July 2026, it announced the establishment of a reserve backed by mining revenue, with the source of funds being the country's large group of Bitcoin miners; and in January 2026, it proposed using cryptocurrency seized from criminal networks to replenish its strategic reserve. In addition, the Network School founded by former Coinbase CTO and a16z general partner Balaji Srinivasan moved out of Malaysia this year, and its new location is also in Kazakhstan.
Although most of these crypto initiatives have been concentrated in the past year to a year and a half, Kazakhstan's deep ties to this industry actually date back five years. In early 2020, the country's mining load was only about 200 megawatts; after China's crackdown on mining in 2021, miners moved their machines across the border, attracted by cheap electricity and the geographical advantage of being adjacent to China, and Kazakhstan quickly became a popular destination. By October 2021, the mining load was estimated to have reached 1.5 gigawatts, making it at one point the world's second-largest mining center. This surge ultimately overwhelmed the power grid, and the government responded with rolling blackouts and a mining tax that took effect in 2022.
The central bank official's latest statement is the implementation of a series of previous announcements and the country's overall crypto plan, and this trend is also visible among other sovereign states and long-term capital allocators.
The divergence revealed by 13F filings: sovereign funds are buying, macro traders are selling
Kazakhstan's move is a sample of a broader trend that Galaxy Research has observed over time: wealth managers and sovereign states are steadily increasing their exposure to Bitcoin and crypto assets, while macro and tactical traders are selling.
Splitting institutions that file 13F filings into net increases and net decreases makes this trend clear at a glance. Hedge fund managers' 13F filings reveal the identities of a large number of institutional sellers—they are precisely basis traders and macro speculators. As of the end of the quarter on September 30, 2025 (the last reporting period before the peak), reporting institutions collectively held spot ETF shares equivalent to 355,000 BTC; by June 2026, that number had fallen to 307,000, a decline of 14%. The reduction came almost entirely from multi-strategy and macro funds, basis trading desks, and bank trading books—which used ETFs as carry and momentum tools. Nine institutions—Millennium Management, Brevan Howard, Goldman Sachs Group, Capula Management, Farallon Capital, D. E. Shaw, Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, Symmetry Investments, and Tudor Investment Corp—collectively cut their holdings by 29% to 100%, about 68,000 BTC. That already exceeds the combined decline of 48,000 BTC across all 2,200 reporting institutions, meaning that all other reporting institutions were, on the whole, increasing their holdings.
Wealth platforms and sovereign funds took over the chips thrown off by speculators. Morgan Stanley's wealth management business, Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company, and Abu Dhabi Investment Council all increased their holdings, while investment management firm Horizon Kinetics kept its position unchanged. Among advisers, family offices, and individual investors who did not file 13Fs, their holdings shrank by only 6.6% even as prices fell 49%. Spot ETF holdings fell only 11% from peak to trough, while prices fell 53% over the same period; since the June low, ETFs have added 87,000 BTC, while short positions held by leveraged funds have declined. This pattern points to directional buying rather than carry trades.
Ukraine's reverse move: the tug of war between sovereignty and monetary sovereignty
However, this trend is not monolithic, and sovereign states are not blindly pushing ahead with crypto and blockchain strategies. Ukraine's central bank recently opposed a crypto bill, citing concerns about monetary sovereignty, and asked regulators to redraft it before the final vote. The bank said it supports an EU MiCA-style regulatory framework, but has general concerns that foreign-issued tokens could undermine monetary sovereignty and financial stability.
The core theme is "control"
The common theme running through all of this is control. Sovereign states such as Kazakhstan are no longer agonizing over "whether to engage with crypto," but are thinking about "how to engage in a way that keeps value and regulation within the state's reach." Kazakhstan has built exposure through funds, seized tokens, and mining, and has issued a stablecoin backed by its national currency, the tenge; Ukraine's central bank is advancing the same principle from the opposite direction—supporting MiCA-style rules while resisting foreign tokens that could act as currency outside its own regulation.
Overall, governments are gradually embracing Bitcoin and crypto assets as assets and infrastructure, but the conditions for acceptance vary. The current conditions are more favorable to regulated channels close to the state system than to open, unconstrained forms of access.
