Kazakhstan just moved toward 0% tax on Bitcoin gains and legal gas-powered mining

Quick disclosure up front, since this sub is (rightly) strict about self-promotion: I maintain a project that tracks Bitcoin’s legal status across ~140 countries: legality, self-custody rights, tax treatment, seizure risk. No link here, just sharing because I think the underlying facts are worth this sub’s time on their own.

On July 7, President Tokayev signed a decree that bundles three things worth knowing:
1/ Tax. A planned exemption from personal income tax on gains from digital asset transactions conducted through Kazakhstan’s regulated infrastructure. Officials have described this as “planned,” so the implementing rules aren’t fully live yet, but the direction is explicit and it came straight from the Ministry of AI and Digital Development.

2/ Mining. A new mechanism letting associated petroleum gas and natural gas that isn’t needed for state use be converted into electricity for mining operations. This is aimed at monetizing stranded/flared gas that was otherwise being wasted.

3/ Offshore coins. A framework to bring previously unregistered or offshore-held crypto assets into the regulated domestic system, alongside groundwork for stablecoin-based cross-border settlement.

Context that makes this land differently: Kazakhstan is the world’s third-largest Bitcoin mining nation by hashrate, behind only the US and China. This is the same country that banned mining and slapped punitive electricity tariffs on miners back in 2021–22 after the post-China-ban influx overloaded its grid. Going from “we’re taxing you out” to “0% on gains, here’s some stranded gas to mine with” in four years is a real reversal.

On the tax point specifically: if this holds as written, it puts Kazakhstan ahead of most G7 countries, several of which still tax Bitcoin gains as ordinary income with no exemption at all.

For reference, across the ~140 countries I track, the current split is roughly 6 clearly pro-Bitcoin, 11 openly hostile, and the rest (~123) somewhere in between with unclear or inconsistent policy.

Genuinely curious what this sub thinks: is this a real long-term bet on Bitcoin infrastructure, or a play to grab mining revenue and hashrate share while the window’s open, and does it matter which one it is?