A court in Kazakhstan has barred Coinbase and five other unnamed firms from offering crypto services without a license, but only to users inside the Astana International Financial Centre. The injunctions stop short of the rest of the country. That boundary matters: the order is scoped to the AIFC's own jurisdiction, not Kazakhstan as a whole.
Who the injunctions actually cover
The court named Coinbase plus five other firms whose identities weren't disclosed in the ruling summary. All six are blocked from providing unlicensed crypto services to users within the AIFC, a special legal zone in Astana with its own financial regulator and court system. For Coinbase, that means a restriction tied to a defined slice of the market — not a nationwide ban.
Why the AIFC boundary matters
The AIFC was built to run on a separate legal track from the rest of Kazakhstan, with its own rules for financial firms. A court order that stops at its edge isn't the same as a national prohibition. Users outside the zone aren't covered by the injunctions, and the six firms can keep operating elsewhere in the country under whatever licensing regime applies there. Whether they do is a separate question the ruling doesn't answer.
A licensing fight, not a blanket ban
The language of the order is narrow. It targets unlicensed activity, not crypto trading as such. That leaves room for any of the six firms to seek authorization and resume serving AIFC users — though none has said publicly that it plans to. Coinbase hasn't issued a statement on the ruling, and the other five firms remain unidentified.
What's still unclear
Three things aren't settled by the facts on the table: whether the five unnamed firms are exchanges, brokers or something else; whether the injunctions carry a deadline for compliance or a penalty schedule; and whether the AIFC's regulator plans to publish the full ruling. Coinbase's next move — an appeal, a licensing application, or a quiet withdrawal from the zone — is the thing to watch. The court order is in force now, and it applies only inside the AIFC's borders.
