The National Bank of Kazakhstan has opened a sandbox for Evo KZTE, a tenge-backed stablecoin built on Solana and connected to Mastercard’s settlement tools. Intebix and Eurasian Bank developed the token and integrated it with Mastercard infrastructure to test real-world payments. The pilot targets day-to-day purchases and public sector financing trials under regulatory oversight.
Evo KZTE is sopported on the Solana ledger and is minted by Intebix or Eurasian Bank. The National Bank sandbox keeps the trial within a fenced perimeter until regulators sign off on wider use, allowing shoppers, lenders and supervisors to measure its performance in controlled conditions.
Mastercard plugs Evo into the wallets of global stablecoin issuers and maps long blockchain addresses to short, human-readable aliases via its Crypto Credential service. This setup is designed to streamline user onboarding and improve addressability across participating platforms.
The National Bank already ran tokenized tenge pilots for budget payments during 2024, and Evo fits inside a longer plan to digitize public assets.
Usage, fees and regulatory considerations
Eurasian Bank, Intebix and Mastercard ran crypto cards that swap USDT to tenge at the point of sale, with conversion routed through Mastercard terminals alongside Apple Pay. This bridges on-chain value with existing card networks for retail payments.
Users pay a 1% markup and may spend up to USD 1,000 per day, while cash withdrawals and person-to-person transfers are disabled for now, the parties state. The 1% fee and the daily cap limit the coin’s appeal for frequent or large payments.
Sandboxes shorten the path to market by letting teams refine the product and user flow under watchful regulators. Mastercard’s links to overseas issuers can widen trading pairs and liquidity corridors for KZTE, while cross-issuer swaps and the Crypto Credential tool raise the bar for KYC checks and Travel Rule data trails.
The team must connect KZTE to global stablecoin issuers and collect usage data from the crypto card trial. Regulators will weigh those figures before allowing the coin to leave the sandbox, shaping the path to broader adoption.
