Uzbekistan Launches Pilot for Government-Backed HUMO Stablecoin Payments
Key Takeaways
- •Uzbekistan is piloting the HUMO stablecoin, pegged 1:1 to the Uzbek Som and backed by government securities, for payments of goods and services.
- •The pilot is overseen by the National Agency of Perspective Projects and the Central Bank of Uzbekistan and may run for up to three years.
- •More than 20 businesses are preparing to participate, with banks and other companies expected to join.
- •HUMO Digital is registered under Uzbekistan's special stablecoin regulatory regime, with Asterium participating as a project partner.
- •Unlike a central bank digital currency, HUMO is issued by a registered entity rather than directly by the central bank.
Uzbekistan has launched a pilot project to test the use of the HUMO stablecoin for payments, as the country continues to expand its regulatory framework for digital assets.
The pilot will be overseen by the National Agency of Perspective Projects (NAPP) and the Central Bank of Uzbekistan (press release). It will test the issuance, circulation, and redemption of HUMO, with each token pegged 1:1 to the Uzbek Som.
HUMO will be backed by government securities and tested as a payment instrument for goods and services. The HUMO brand is already well established in Uzbekistan's payments market through the HUMO payment card system operated in the country, which the pilot's naming reflects. More than 20 businesses are preparing to participate, with banks and other companies also expected to join.
A separate area of the pilot will focus on integrating the banking, payment processing, and blockchain infrastructure of project participants to enable settlements using the HUMO stable token.
HUMO Digital has been registered under Uzbekistan's special regulatory regime for stablecoins, while crypto infrastructure provider Asterium is participating as a project partner.
The pilot, which can run for up to three years, will also test the integration of banking, payment-processing, and blockchain infrastructure across participants. The multi-year timeframe reflects the scope of the undertaking: assessing a government-securities-backed token in live retail and settlement use requires observing it across sustained commercial activity, not just technical trials.
The initiative places Uzbekistan among a growing set of jurisdictions experimenting with state-supervised stablecoins or central bank digital currencies, though HUMO is distinct in being backed by government securities rather than issued directly by the central bank. Within Central Asia, Uzbekistan has moved comparatively quickly on digital asset regulation, having previously established licensing regimes for crypto exchanges and mining under NAPP oversight.
Upon completion of the project, the practical applicability of the model of a stable token backed by government securities will be assessed, the associated risks will be identified, and proposals will be developed to further improve approaches to regulating digital financial instruments in Uzbekistan.
Source: BitcoinKE
