Turkmenistan has adopted a sweeping new law on virtual assets that legalizes tightly regulated cryptocurrency activity, aligning the country with a broader global push to bring digital assets into formal regulatory frameworks while preserving strong state control. The law creates a licensing regime for exchanges and miners, clarifies the legal status of digital assets, and introduces strict anti-money laundering and user identification rules ahead of its planned entry into force in 2026.
New virtual assets law
President Serdar Berdimuhamedov has signed the Law on Virtual Assets, which establishes Turkmenistan’s first comprehensive legal framework for the creation, issuance, storage, circulation and use of digital assets. The legislation will take effect on 1 January 2026 and is positioned as part of a broader strategy to diversify the gas‑dependent economy and promote digitalisation.
The law defines the legal, economic and organisational basis for activities involving virtual assets and explicitly distinguishes them from securities, national currency, electronic money, bank deposits and gambling products. Cryptocurrencies will be recognised as objects of civil rights but cannot be used as legal tender or as a means of payment within Turkmenistan’s domestic economy.
Licensing and market structure
The framework introduces mandatory licensing for cryptocurrency exchanges, custodial services and related trading platforms operating in or targeting Turkmenistan. Operators must register with the designated regulator, comply with prudential and operational standards, and accept that the state bears no responsibility for their financial obligations.
Authorities will hold extensive powers to supervise the sector, including the ability to suspend, revoke or demand the return of token issuances deemed non‑compliant. The law also allows the central bank to authorise distributed ledger infrastructures or operate its own platforms, giving the state significant leverage over which networks can be used domestically.
Mining and infrastructure rules
Turkmenistan’s new law formally legalises cryptocurrency mining and mining pool operations, subject to mandatory electronic registration and oversight. Both companies and individual entrepreneurs can engage in mining activities provided they register with the Central Bank and comply with technical, reporting and energy‑use requirements that distinguish between industrial and private mining.
Clandestine mining, including the covert use of another party’s computing resources without consent, is explicitly prohibited. The law also introduces definitions for mining equipment, smart contracts, digital tokens, non‑fungible tokens (NFTs) and virtual asset service providers, laying the groundwork for a regulated digital asset infrastructure.
AML, KYC and user protection
The framework embeds stringent anti‑money laundering (AML) and know‑your‑customer (KYC) standards, bringing Turkmenistan closer to international expectations for virtual asset supervision. Exchanges and custodians must implement robust client identification, transaction monitoring and record‑keeping controls, while cold‑storage requirements apply to a significant portion of client funds to reduce cyber‑risk.
Anonymous wallets and unidentifiable crypto transactions are banned, effectively excluding privacy‑enhancing tools and unregistered platforms from the formal market. Crypto‑related advertising will be tightly regulated, with mandatory risk warnings about potential total loss of capital and restrictions on promotions that depict wealth, offer bonuses or target minors.
Role of banks and financial sector
Under the new rules, credit institutions are prohibited from directly providing cryptocurrency services, underscoring the authorities’ intention to keep traditional banking separate from retail digital‑asset activity. This separation allows the state to ring‑fence systemic financial risks while still enabling a specialised, licensed crypto sector to operate under close supervision.
Crypto assets are categorised into backed and unbacked types, allowing regulators to differentiate between tokens linked to underlying assets and purely speculative instruments when assessing risk. By doing so, the law creates space for potential future initiatives in asset‑backed tokenisation without granting any crypto asset the status of money or security under domestic law.
Alignment with digital strategy and global trends
The law forms part of Turkmenistan’s Concept for the Development of the Digital Economy for 2019–2025, which also includes projects such as the “Sanly Bilim” (Digital Education) initiative and the rollout of a unified state portal for electronic services. Officials present the measure as a tool to attract investment, modernise infrastructure and integrate emerging technologies into a gradually expanding digital ecosystem