On your points:

The leadership of Kyrgyzstan, on a personal level, is generally not so tech-savvy to understand blockchain in-depth. However, they have a history of promoting legislation to support technical innovation. They launched a "High Technologies Park" tax regime granting complete exemption from taxes to any qualifying IT business which exports its product/services (so far, there are dozens of companies using the regime, and their biggest clients are in the Silicon Valley... offshore software development of sorts). They are now running an ambitious program, called Taza Koom (Clean, or Transparent Society) which basically is E-Government etc. etc.

There is no concern about cryptocurrencies affecting the Kyrgyz fiat currency, Som at all because the country does not have ANY exchange controls in the first place. Other currencies are welcome for trading, there are no barriers for capital movement etc. The National Bank only advises people to be very careful investing into crypto, as it is volatile and may not be a replacement for conservative family savings (which is only reasonable).

Best,

VT

Hello, my name is Valery Tutykhin. I am the Director of International Finance Center Development Agency in the Kyrgyz Republic, and it was us who commissioned the report discussed in the original post here.

Answering your question: there is no hostility towards cryptocurrencies in Kyrgyzstan. In 2014 the Chairman of the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic sent out a circular stating that bitcoin is not a valid currency for domestic settlements (which is absolutely true, but is irrelevant for the development of any crypto businesses, this is just a legal matter for domestic commerce - that you should not quote prices in a foreign currency... like dollars or euro or any other currency). That was widely and erroneously interpreted as a negative stance of Kyrgyzstan towards crypto business.

This erroneous interpretation has been rectified early this year when the international legal team engaged by our Agency and the country's stock exchange produced a report on how the law of the Kyrgyz Republic treats cryptocurrencies, ICOs, mining etc etc. It was presented to the Government and all the relevant departments.

In a nutshell, the conclusion of the legal experts was that you can engage in any crypto commerce in Kyrgyzstan, and the local law will support it. Moreover, the peculiarity of Kyrgyzstan's legislation is that you can use its jurisdiction to do a number of unique things:

- run an ICO in the form of a local IPO (with full regulation by the local SEC); that will eliminate the controversy of whether the tokens are investment or utility tokens. There is local investment infrastructure (ask me for references, if you need) enabling the tokenization of any shares issued as regular shares. You get a listing at the local stock exchange plus the ability to have your tokens traded globally;

- use the local commodity exchange or set up your own to have a fully compliant, regulated crypto exchange (cryptos are "commodities" under Kyrgyz law).

Etc. etc.

Will be happy to answer any specific questions and direct you to local providers if you consider using Kyrgyzstan as your legal base for the crypto project.


Valery Tutykhin

cell +41 79 775 75 75 (+WhatsApp etc)