Astana International Financial Center (AIFC) and E

Malta-Astana                                                                                       October 17, 2017 

Astana International Financial Centre and next generation investment company EXANTE signed a memorandum of cooperation in order to develop the cryptocurrency market in Kazakhstan and to position the AIFC as an international technology expertise center.

According to the memorandum, EXANTE, with several successful blockchain projects already in its portfolio, will launch the Stasis platform that will serve as the foundation for the new digital asset secured by fiat. The parties also agreed to cooperate in developing the AIFC -act on the regulation of the digital assets market and support the evolution of the fintech-ecosystem of the AIFC, using EXANTE's knowledge and experience in blockchain projects.

"Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are entering the mainstream of today's economic reality. Astana's leading financial regulators have already commenced their work and are laying the foundation for Kazakhstan's fitech-ecosystem. We believe that the AIFC can become an international hub for blockchain operations and the development of the digital assets market is our key priority in the near future," said the Governor of the Astana International Finance Center, Kairat Kelimbetov.

The distributed ledger technology has already drawn the attention of numerous national governments. Therefore Kazakhstan has taken proactive  steps to become a global trailblazer in this field.

Gregory Klumov, Co-founder and CEO of Stasis, shares this optimistic forecast for the blockchain market. «Blockchain technology has several indisputable advantages: transparency, immutability, relatively fast transactions, and reduced cost. These factors are more than enough for a bullish tendency to come. The Global Money Supply (M2) figure is growing at 6% per year and stands at about $50 trillion currently (ex China). Digital assets market will double every two years till at least 2021. We are working on a backbone of the blockchain world, that will close the gap between emerging decentralized finance and the people».

Earlier, AIFC announced its intention to create  a crypto-valley on the territory of EXPO-2017. The first step in establishing Astana as a crypto-valley is going to be to prepare the draft of rules and regulations regarding  digital assets. The project of the legal framework is expected to be released in the the upcoming weeks.

Cryptocurrencies are experiencing sharp growth: overall market capitalization is up by 7.5x,  trading volumes by 18.5x times for the first 9 months of 2017. The market is highly concentrated as top-5 cryptocurrencies account for 80% of the capitalization and 75% of trading volumes.

Reference Information:

AIFC: In December 2015, the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, signed the Constitutional Law on the establishment of the Astana International Financial Center (AIFC). The purpose of the AIFC is to form a leading center of financial services of an international level. For the first time in the post-Soviet space, the principles of English law will be introduced: the official language of the financial center will be English.

AIFC's tasks are to assist in attracting investments in the country's economy by creating an attractive environment for investing in financial services, developing the securities market of the Republic of Kazakhstan, ensuring its integration with international capital markets. AIFC also intends to develop Kazakhstan's insurance market, banking services and the Islamic financing market.

EXANTE, an international investment company founded in 2011 in Malta, today has offices in 10 countries. In 2016, its trade turnover amounted to 350 billion US dollars. The company is licensed by the MFSA and CySEC, is authorized by FCA UK and provides direct access to the world's largest financial markets with the ability to trade shares, futures, options, funds, bonds, currency pairs, metals and digital assets through its own trading terminal developed by the company's specialists. In 2012, the founders of EXANTE offered investors the world's first adjustable way to earn money on the bitcoin course by launching their own cryptocurrency hedge fund Bitcoin Fund. In a year of existence, the fund showed a profitability of 4,847%, and in 2017 this figure has already reached 10,262%

The Stasis Platform is a financial and technological infrastructure for launching digital assets reserved by traditional financial instruments with regular state audit.

stasis.net is an official web page of Stasis.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/Attachm...6b47c6026a

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/Attachm...655356f500