How tokenisation could tansform property ownership in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is considering expanding the use of asset tokenisation to enable citizens to acquire ownership interests in companies and real estate, while providing businesses with additional opportunities to raise capital, El.kz reports citing the President’s Address of October,28, 2026.

Imagine a manufacturing plant that needs funding to purchase new equipment. Its management offers investors the opportunity to acquire small digital ownership interests, with all transactions recorded in a dedicated register. In theory, these interests could be purchased using a smartphone. But what exactly does the buyer acquire: an equity stake in the company, an entitlement to a share of its profits, or merely a promise to repay the invested funds? The answer determines almost everything.

In his Address of October,28, 2026, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called for the potential of asset tokenisation to be harnessed so that citizens could become co-owners of companies and other assets, while businesses could gain access to capital. This area already has a legislative framework and its own pilot projects. However, the digital format of a transaction does not, in itself, make it safe.

How can a factory be divided into digital ownership interests?

Tokenisation involves representing a specific right to an asset or financial instrument in digital form, known as a token. These records may be stored on a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform.

For illustrative purposes, let us assume that a manufacturing facility is valued at 1 billion tenge and that 100,000 tokens are issued at 10,000 tenge each. These figures are provided solely to explain the underlying mechanism. This example does not refer to any specific manufacturing facility in Kazakhstan or to an actual tokenisation arrangement.

The most important aspect of the transaction lies in the legal meaning of the term “digital ownership interest”. One token issuance may represent shares in a company; another may constitute a claim against a company for payment of income; a third may confer rights associated with a specific asset. A blockchain record documents the transaction, but the nature and scope of the rights are determined by applicable law, contractual arrangements and issuance documentation.

Does purchasing a token make you a shareholder?

Not necessarily. The holder of an ordinary share generally acquires corporate rights provided for by law, including the right to participate in corporate governance and the right to receive dividends, subject to the applicable conditions for their distribution.

By contrast, a purchaser of an asset-backed token may acquire an entirely different set of rights, such as a contractual claim to receive specified payments from the issuer.

Where a token qualifies as a security and is duly issued and structured under the applicable legal framework, the rights it confers may be equivalent to those attached to the relevant security. However, the word “token” displayed on a smartphone screen provides no such guarantee.

Investors need to establish who legally owns the manufacturing facility, where their rights are registered, whether they are entitled to voting rights, and what happens in the event of the issuer’s insolvency.

Digital square metres are already being offered in Kazakhstan

The most tangible domestic example emerged on February,11, 2026, when the National Bank of Kazakhstan announced the launch of a commercial real estate tokenisation project on the Apartchain platform within its regulatory sandbox.

Under the project, each token represents one square metre of the underlying property. Participants are able to conduct transactions involving digital ownership interests and receive income distributions in proportion to the number of tokens they hold.

The project was launched by “Alternative Digital Networks”, together with partners including Nazarbayev University Impact Foundation, Astana Business Campus and First Validator.

The pilot operates under a limited testing framework in which the regulator assesses technological and legal risks. It provides a real-world example of tokenisation, but should not be interpreted as unrestricted access for anyone to purchase individual square metres in residential developments across Kazakhstan.