Golden Finance reported that Kazakhstan’s regulatory agency AFM RK announced that the authorities had blocked more than 3,500 illegally operating cryptocurrency exchanges. The operation was the result of a joint effort between the National Security Council and the Ministry of Culture and Information. Previously, in 2023, authorities also blocked access to Coinbase on suspicion of violating digital asset laws. In 2024, regulators liquidated 36 illegal cryptocurrency exchanges with a total trading volume of 60 billion Kazakh tenge (approximately $113 million) and froze assets worth 4.8 million USDT. In addition, the authorities uncovered two cryptocurrency pyramid scams, returned 545,000 USDT to victims, and froze 120,000 USDT held by the platform.