Kazakhstan’s central bank is partnering with Tether, the issuer of the dollar-pegged USDT stablecoin, to explore a stablecoin tied to the local tenge and the tokenization of real-world assets.

CoinDesk reported on October 7 that Tether signed a memorandum of understanding that day with the National Bank of Kazakhstan and the Alatau City Administration, or ACA, to cooperate on stablecoins, asset tokenization and decentralized finance, or DeFi.

The three organizations will jointly study overseas stablecoin issuance models and use cases. They will also prepare a proposal for the concept design and pilot program of a tenge-linked stablecoin.

Tokenization of real-world assets is another key area of cooperation. The three parties plan to identify asset classes suited for tokenization, design tokenization models and pursue a pilot project in Alatau. They will also review the use of Tether’s asset issuance and management platform, Hadron.

Tether and Kazakh authorities will also run training programs for central bank staff and related government agencies. The main topics will include stablecoin issuance, reserve management and the tokenization of real-world assets using distributed ledger technology.

Binur Zhalenov, deputy governor of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, said the central bank plans to closely study international best practices for stablecoin issuance and real-world asset tokenization. He added that financial stability, transaction transparency and investor protection would be the top priorities.