# Astana Crypto Notes > Dated notes from the AIFC Astana Crypto Notes covers licensing, regulation, exchange, custody, compliance, local banking, onramp, offramp, industries, otc and nothing else. Every article is written by Yerlan Nurpeis. Notes from the AIFC: licensed venues, pilot projects, and the gap between an announcement and a working service. The intended reader is people watching whether the licensed infrastructure actually works. No price predictions, no investment advice and no paid placements: articles explain how something works so the reader can decide for themselves. Where a number matters, the article states where it came from and when it was measured. 20 articles, published 2026-08-10 to 2026-10-25. Every article is also served as plain Markdown: replace the trailing slash with `.md` — https://astanacryptonotes.com/claims-waiting-for-evidence.md ## Industries - [A Running List of Claims Still Waiting for Evidence](https://astanacryptonotes.com/claims-waiting-for-evidence/): The standing list I keep, the categories it falls into, and why publishing it is more useful than another prediction. - [Conference Announcements Versus Things That Shipped](https://astanacryptonotes.com/conference-announcements-versus-shipped/): A note on the annual cycle of announcements, and a simple record-keeping habit that makes it legible. ## Exchange - [Checking Whether an Advertised Pair Is Actually Tradable](https://astanacryptonotes.com/checking-whether-a-pair-is-tradable/): A pair can be listed, visible and effectively untradable. Three checks that take two minutes. - [Support Response Times, Measured Over Two Weeks](https://astanacryptonotes.com/support-response-times/): A method for measuring something people complain about constantly and nobody records, plus what my own records show. - [The Quiet Delisting Nobody Announced](https://astanacryptonotes.com/the-quiet-delisting/): Assets are added with a post and removed with a footnote. A note on noticing, and on what a holder should do. - [Comparing Published Fees With Fees Actually Charged](https://astanacryptonotes.com/published-fees-versus-charged/): A method for checking that a schedule is applied, which takes one transaction and a careful look at the statement. - [Market Making on Regulated Venues: What the Books Show](https://astanacryptonotes.com/market-making-on-regulated-venues/): Order book depth is public and tells you more about a venue than its marketing does. What to look at and what it means. - [Fees Charged by AIFC Platforms, as Published](https://astanacryptonotes.com/fees-charged-by-aifc-platforms/): A note on reading published schedules, what they usually omit, and the one number that is almost never in them. - [Testing Whether a Licensed Platform Actually Accepts Deposits](https://astanacryptonotes.com/testing-whether-a-platform-accepts-deposits/): A method for checking that a service exists, costing one minimum deposit and about twenty minutes. ## Licensing - [What a New Authorisation Changes for Ordinary Users](https://astanacryptonotes.com/what-a-new-authorisation-changes/): A platform obtaining a licence changes four things for its customers, and most of them are not visible for months. - [Registry Entries Worth Checking Before You Sign Anything](https://astanacryptonotes.com/registry-entries-worth-checking/): Four registers, what each one tells you, and the ten minutes that separate a checked counterparty from an assumed one. - [Which Services Are Open to Non-Residents](https://astanacryptonotes.com/which-services-open-to-non-residents/): Residency determines what a platform may offer you. A note on finding the answer before onboarding rather than during. - [Which AIFC Licences Are Live, and What They Permit](https://astanacryptonotes.com/which-licences-are-live/): A note on reading the register rather than the press release, and on the difference between a permission and a service. ## Regulation - [Infrastructure That Exists Only in a Memorandum](https://astanacryptonotes.com/infrastructure-in-a-memorandum/): A note on the difference between a signed document and a working system, and why the first keeps being reported as the second. - [The Gap Between a Press Release and a Working Service](https://astanacryptonotes.com/press-release-versus-working-service/): Six stages separate an announcement from something you can use. Most coverage reports stage one as if it were stage six. - [Note on a Pilot That Was Announced and Not Yet Observed](https://astanacryptonotes.com/note-on-an-announced-pilot/): The standing problem with covering this market: announcements are public, operations are not, and nobody follows up. ## Compliance - [A Short Note on Verification Times at Two Platforms](https://astanacryptonotes.com/verification-times-at-two-platforms/): What can and cannot be concluded from a handful of onboarding attempts, and why I publish the method rather than a ranking. ## Local banking - [Digital Tenge Pilots: What Was Visible This Quarter](https://astanacryptonotes.com/digital-tenge-pilots-this-quarter/): A note on what can be observed from outside a central bank pilot, and what cannot. - [Bank Partnerships Named in Filings, and Their Current State](https://astanacryptonotes.com/bank-partnerships-in-filings/): Banking relationships are the binding constraint on any platform here. They are announced loudly and discontinued quietly. ## Offramp - [Observing a Withdrawal End to End on a Licensed Venue](https://astanacryptonotes.com/observing-a-withdrawal-end-to-end/): What each stage of a withdrawal actually consists of, and which stage is responsible when the whole thing takes two days. ## About this site - [About](https://astanacryptonotes.com/about/): what the site covers, who writes it and how articles are checked. - [Author](https://astanacryptonotes.com/author/): Yerlan Nurpeis. Notes from the AIFC: licensed venues, pilot projects, and the gap between an announcement and a working service. - [Contact](https://astanacryptonotes.com/contact/): corrections and questions. - [Privacy](https://astanacryptonotes.com/privacy/): what the site does and does not collect. ## Machine-readable - [https://astanacryptonotes.com/llms-full.txt](https://astanacryptonotes.com/llms-full.txt): full text of every article in one file. - [https://astanacryptonotes.com/sitemap-index.xml](https://astanacryptonotes.com/sitemap-index.xml): every indexable URL. - [https://astanacryptonotes.com/rss.xml](https://astanacryptonotes.com/rss.xml): feed of new articles.