Full speed ahead despite crypto confusion?

After a brief crypto bull run earlier this year that has now turned bearish, Pakistan was quick to raise crypto as an agenda item as part of its overall strategy of deploying commercial diplomacy, such that in February — a month after the new ‘crypto-friendly’ US administration took office — we were already hearing reports of a National Crypto Council being established under the Finance Ministry, with Bilal Bin Saqib later announced as its CEO.

While it has not even been a year since Mr Saqib’s appointment, so far his title has taken five different forms: from initially being tasked as Chief Advisor to the Finance Minister to CEO of the Pakistan Crypto Council (PCC), he was quickly elevated as the nation’s first Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Blockchain and Crypto before finally moving on as the inaugural Chairman of Pakistan’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA); the latter two providing him an equivalent status to a Minister of State. Recently, his resignation as SAPM (dated August 21) has come to light. However, Mr Saqib continues as Chairman of PVARA.

With the SAPM position gone, questions are now being raised about the illusion of a crypto ministry, which never existed. The status of the Crypto Council also remains unclear, as sources within the finance ministry indicate that no meetings have taken place recently and directed queries to PVARA, which could not be reached due to the absence of an official spokesperson.

With crypto diplomacy evolving behind closed doors, Pakistan must recentre this public interest debate on regulation, sovereignty and economic integrity

The crypto council, however, continues its online social media presence with recent updates from the United Arab Emirates as Mr Saqib attends Binance’s Blockchain Week ahead of Bitcoin’s Middle East and North Africa conference, while an insider source suggests that without a formal notification, it should continue to exist with Mr Saqib as CEO and the finance minister as chairman.

Against this backdrop, it is now pertinent to imagine a future for crypto in Pakistan beyond closed diplomatic channels with foreign countries and within open domestic channels, with public interest at the centre.

The PCC, upon its creation, had been tasked with (i) developing a legal and institutional framework for crypto adoption; (ii) creating licensing procedures for exchanges; (iii) leveraging surplus energy for Bitcoin mining; (iv) ensuring compliance with international anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CFT) standards; and (v) promoting innovation in blockchain applications.

It eventually gave rise to Ordinance No. VII of 2025, promulgated by the President on July 8 “to establish a regulatory authority for the licensing, regulation and supervision of Virtual Assets and Virtual Assets Service Providers”, with the authority, PVARA’s, first board meeting having taken place on August 26.

Since then, PVARA has launched a Crypto Grievance Cell, developed in collaboration with the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency, and has also recently quietly published its Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations through its website, forming part of its pre-licensing compliance step.

While speaking on the sidelines of Binance Blockchain Week, Mr Saqib also highlighted Pakistan’s plans of launching a stablecoin, in addition to the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) Central Bank Digital Currency Pilot.

While not much is known regarding the private issuance of a Pakistani stablecoin, Aatiqa Lateef, a crypto policy expert, previously highlighted that, “The US ‘privatised’ approach can work in a deep, dollar-native market; in a foreign exchange-constrained economy, monetary sovereignty and convertibility discipline argue for SBP-anchored issuance with private rails and user experience.”

She further highlighted, “For Pakistan, the lowest-risk path is a two-tier model: keeping issuance under SBP control but enabling private-sector distribution.” In practice, that means (a) SBP pilots a retail CBDC or tokenised rupee with final settlement in the real-time gross settlement (RTGS)/Raast stack; and (b) licensed banks/payment service providers issue tokenised deposits/e-money fully backed by rupees at the SBP or in segregated trust accounts.

Hassan Baig, Chairman of Stacks Asia Foundation, says that, “Having met the finance minister, we’re now exploring partnerships in Pakistan, where we build end-to-end crypto rails and provide liquidity which is kept onshore in Pakistani banks.” He adds that, “The objective is to enable our partners to test said crypto rails in a risk-free way, without upfront capital commitments.”

According to Mr Baig, Stacks Asia Foundation, which is a Stacks entity handling Stacks’ Asian footprint, is “on the cusp of testing Pakistan’s first cross-border payment over crypto rails with a large financial institution in approximately three weeks.” He says that this will be an internal demonstration of the technology, “proving remittance is received in less than 50 seconds, with less than 0.5 per cent cost”.

While not in a position to name names, he says they have engaged four banks and “three of the largest fintechs”, and that they are starting with “simple internal demos, leading to sandboxes, to national-scale deployments”, all subject to key performance indicators being met and, of course, regulatory approval.

So, we must enable cheaper and quicker remittances, but without compromising on the nation’s economic integrity. The policy priorities should remain on enabling Pakistani exports rather than on increasing reliance on remittances. After all, dollarisation came before stablecoins, and countries still developed without tokenisation. Mubariz Siddiqui, a legal expert, says, “Once the exchange is regulated, the next thing will be stablecoins and real-world assets.”

The writer is a freelancer journalist

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, December 8th, 2025