Kazakhstan Offers Phygital Gold

The National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) has launched a new digital coin, backed by unallocated and certified physical gold. Those interested can purchase, and then sell, the digital gold coin via a mobile application called ‘Tabys’. Investors are also able to gift coins to another investor using the app.

Digital gold can be converted into a physical gold investment coin called ÚKI (The Owl), which can be collected from 16 NBK branches. One ÚKI coin is equivalent to 20 digital gold coins, with the coin price based on that of gold set by the LBMA and the US dollar to tenge exchange rate set by the NBK. It has a face value of 100 tenge and will be minted in BU quality.