Dunamu partners with Kazakhstan’s Alatau City on digital finance push worth $6B

South Korea’s Dunamu, the company behind the country’s largest crypto exchange Upbit, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan’s Alatau City Administration and Alatau City Bank. The agreement, formalized on September 15-16, 2026, during a Korea-Kazakhstan Business Roundtable in Seoul, puts Dunamu at the center of a multi-billion-dollar effort to build out digital financial infrastructure across Central Asia.

The timing was deliberate. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was in Seoul on an official state visit, and the signing was part of a broader diplomatic push to attract technology partnerships into Kazakhstan’s emerging fintech ecosystem.

What the deal actually involves

The MOU covers four main areas: real-world asset tokenization, security token offerings, stablecoins, and digital payment solutions. Dunamu contributes the technical side, drawing on its experience running one of Asia’s most active crypto trading platforms. The Alatau City Administration handles regulatory coordination and helps connect the partnership with local institutions willing to run pilot programs.

Alatau City Bank is the operational center of gravity here. The bank has already integrated Binance Pay across more than 5,000 point-of-sale terminals, making it one of the more crypto-forward traditional financial institutions in the region. The bank is now targeting up to $60 million in tokenization pilots focused on real estate and logistics projects, with those programs expected to get off the ground before the end of 2026, leveraging the infrastructure of the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange.

The broader Alatau City megaproject carries an estimated total investment target of $6 billion. It has attracted partnerships with Halyk Bank, Solana, and Binance for payment integrations, positioning the city as Kazakhstan’s answer to a full-stack digital finance hub.

What to watch from here

The $60 million tokenization target for real estate and logistics is the near-term benchmark worth tracking. If Alatau City Bank and Dunamu can get pilots live on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange infrastructure by the end of 2026, that would represent genuine progress rather than just announced intent.

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