President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedow signed a new law “On Virtual Assets,” which establishes the legal framework for digital asset circulation, defines the procedures for state regulation, licensing, taxation, and the responsibilities of market participants.
The document, published in the government newspaper Neytralny Turkmenistan, provides detailed definitions of virtual assets and sets requirements for their issuers, platform operators, service providers, and regulatory bodies. The law also introduces mandatory state registration and financial oversight for all activities related to digital assets.
The law offers an extensive definition of virtual assets, classifying them as digital data that hold value and circulate using distributed ledger technologies (DLT). This category explicitly includes various types of crypto-assets, such as payment, investment, utility, and non-fungible tokens (NFT). In addition, the document identifies “other digital valuables,” describing hybrid forms of financial instruments such as stablecoins, tokenized property rights, digital ownership certificates, and future forms of digital assets that may emerge with technological advancement.
The document provides for the creation of a state system for accounting and monitoring virtual assets. All market participants are required to undergo state registration, after which they are authorized to provide services including exchange, storage, issuance, and management of digital assets.
The law establishes strict requirements for service providers, including:
- having appropriate software and technical infrastructure;
- ensuring information security;
- implementing financial monitoring measures and preventing illicit transactions.
A separate chapter is devoted to taxation. Transactions involving virtual assets must be recorded financially, and participants are required to declare their income. The state reserves the right to suspend the activities of operators if any violations are detected.
Rules for advertising digital assets are also introduced. The law prohibits misleading information, requires advertisers to disclose risks, and mandates that promotional materials be approved by the regulatory authority.
The law comes into force on January 1, 2026.
Two months earlier, lawmakers in Kyrgyzstan, another Central Asian country, also adopted a law “On Virtual Assets,” which laid the foundation for regulating the cryptocurrency sector there.
