• The AIFC Court, in a judgment CoinDesk dates to September 15, restrained BingX, Bitcoin.com, Huobi Global (HTX), BitMart, Coinbase and WEEX from unlicensed digital asset services inside the AIFC.
• The order covers marketing and mobile-app distribution, not only the trading service itself.
• The scope is the AIFC and users located there. CoinDesk says it does not amount to a nationwide ban.
• The judgment was a default judgment: the operators did not respond within the required period, so the merits were not contested.
• LBank was removed from the proceedings on September 18 after it addressed AFSA's concerns and blocked access in Kazakhstan, which shows the cheapest exit route.

A Kazakhstan court has told six crypto platforms to stop offering unlicensed digital asset services inside the Astana International Financial Centre. CoinDesk reports that the AIFC Court's judgment, issued September 15 by Justice Sir Stephen Richards, covers BingX, Bitcoin.com, Huobi Global (HTX), BitMart, Coinbase and WEEX. The detail that matters most is the mechanism. The order reaches marketing and app distribution, and the regulator is looking at app stores as a lever, not only at the exchanges.

A default judgment, not a contested ruling

CoinDesk reports the court entered a default judgment because the platform operators did not respond within the required period. That limits what the case establishes. No operator argued that its activity fell outside AIFC rules, so the judgment shows the court will grant relief when AFSA's case goes unanswered. It does not test the legal theory. A later appearance by any of the six could reopen the question, and that is the point to watch.

Scope is the AIFC, not the country

The injunctions apply only within the AIFC and to users located there, and CoinDesk says they do not amount to a nationwide ban. That distinction follows from the jurisdiction's structure. AFSA's reach is the financial centre, and the 2023 government block of Coinbase's website, reported by The Block, rested on a separate national-law basis. Compliance teams should treat the two regimes as distinct exposures with different enforcers.

App stores enter the enforcement chain

CoinDesk reports the order binds Google and Apple as app-store operators, though the court declined to issue a separate injunction against them and said AFSA should first discuss the necessary steps with the companies. The practical incentive is clear: delisting an app from a defined territory is cheaper to enforce than pursuing offshore operators. The unresolved question is whether the stores can geofence listings to a jurisdiction as small as the AIFC.

LBank shows the exit route

According to CoinDesk, LBank was named in the initial proceedings but was removed on September 18 after it addressed AFSA's concerns and blocked access to its services in Kazakhstan. The signal is that the regulator's practical demand is either licensing or geoblocking, and that engaging early removes a platform from the case. The six default platforms chose, or were unable, to make that choice in time.

What compliance teams should take from it

Platforms serving Central Asian users should map where their marketing, app listings and onboarding touch the AIFC, and confirm licensing status against AFSA's published guidance. AFSA has warned more than 20 platforms since 2025, per CoinDesk, so an unanswered warning is now a documented step toward a court order. Monitor whether other free-zone regulators copy the app-store route.