Pakistan creates Digital Asset Authority to regulate crypto

Published

3 months ago

May 22, 2025

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Pakistan creates Digital Asset Authority to regulate crypto

Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance has reportedly endorsed the creation of a dedicated body to regulate blockchain-based financial infrastructure in the country.

The Pakistan Digital Assets Authority (PDAA) will serve as a regulatory body to oversee licensing, regulate exchanges, custodians, wallets, tokenized platforms, stablecoins and decentralized finance applications, according to a May 21 report from the state-owned broadcaster, PTV.

Muhammad Aurangzeb, federal minister for finance and revenue, told the broadcaster, “Pakistan must regulate not just to catch up, but to lead” in the industry.

“With the PDAA, we are creating a future-ready framework that protects consumers, invites global investment, and puts Pakistan at the forefront of financial innovation,” he said.

Cryptocurrencies, Technology, Pakistan, Bitcoin Mining, Cryptocurrency Exchange — *Muhammad Aurangzeb, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue. Source:* *Pakistan Ministry of Finance*

The PDAA will also be tasked with tokenizing national assets and government debt, facilitating monetization of Pakistan’s surplus electricity through regulated Bitcoin mining, and helping startups build blockchain-based solutions at scale.

The new regulatory body was part of a recommendation from the Pakistan advisory body, the Cryptocurrency Council, which was launched on March 14 and has former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao as an adviser.

“This is not just about crypto — it’s about rewriting our financial future, expanding access, and creating new export channels through tokenization, digital finance and Web3 innovation,” said Bilal Bin Saqib, CEO of Pakistan’s Crypto Council.

Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency previously proposed a regulatory framework for digital assets designed to address terrorism financing, money laundering provisions, and Know Your Customer concerns, according to am April 10 report from local newspaper, The Express Tribune.

Pakistan crypto market rises despite early skepticism

In May 2023, former Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Aisha Ghaus Pasha said that Pakistan would never legalize cryptocurrencies due to the potential for digital assets to circumvent regulations created by the Financial Action Task Force, the supranational organization that polices finance for money laundering.

However, the following year, Pakistan ranked highly in Chainalysis’ 2024 crypto adoption index, coming in ninth, mainly due to strong retail adoption and transactions at centralized services.

Meanwhile, the online data platform Statista shows Pakistan’s crypto market is “experiencing rapid growth” and estimates the number of crypto users is expected to amount to over 27 million by 2025, out of a population of 247 million.

At the same time, revenue in the Pakistan crypto market is projected to reach $1.6 billion in 2025. The United States still leads the pack, with its crypto market generating an estimated revenue of over $9.4 billion, according to Statista data.

Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025

Politics

Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell tells Nigel Farage ‘kneejerk’ migrant deportation plan won’t solve problem

Published

8 hours ago

August 30, 2025

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Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell tells Nigel Farage 'kneejerk' migrant deportation plan won't solve problem

The Archbishop of York has told Sky News the UK should resist Reform’s “kneejerk” plan for the mass deportation of migrants, telling Nigel Farage he is not offering any “long-term solution”.

Stephen Cottrell said in an interview with Trevor Phillips he has “every sympathy” with people who are concerned about asylum seekers coming to the country illegally.

But he criticised the plan announced by Reform on Tuesday to deport 600,000 people, which would be enabled by striking deals with the Taliban and Iran, saying it will not “solve the problem”.

Mr Cottrell is currently acting head of the Church of England while a new Archbishop of Canterbury is chosen.

Phillips asked him: “What’s your response to the people who are saying the policy should be ‘you land here, unlawfully, you get locked up and you get deported straight away. No ifs, no buts’?”

Mr Cottrell said he would tell them “you haven’t solved the problem”, adding: “You’ve just put it somewhere else and you’ve done nothing to address the issue of what brings people to this country.

“And so if you think that’s the answer, you will discover in due course that all you have done is made the problem worse.

“Don’t misunderstand me, I have every sympathy with those who find this difficult, every sympathy – as I do with those living in poverty.

“But… we should actively resist the kind of isolationist, short term kneejerk ‘send them home’.”

Asked if that was his message to the Reform leader, he said: “Well, it is. I mean, Mr Farage is saying the things he’s saying, but he is not offering any long-term solution to the big issues which are convulsing our world, which lead to this. And, I see no other way.”

You can watch the full interview on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News from 8.30am

Mr Farage, the MP for Clacton, was asked at a news conference this week what he would say if Christian leaders opposed his plan.

“Whoever the Christian leaders are at any given point in time, I think over the last decades, quite a few of them have been rather out of touch, perhaps with their own flock,” he said.

“We believe that what we’re offering is right and proper, and we believe for a political party that was founded around the slogan of family, community, country that we are doing right by all of those things, with these plans we put forward today.”

Sky News has approached Mr Farage for comment.

Farage won’t be greeting this as good news of the gospel – nor will govt ministers

When Tony Blair’s spin doctor Alastair Campbell told journalists that “We don’t do God”, many took it as a statement of ideology.

In fact it was the caution of a canny operator who knows that the most dangerous opponent in politics is a religious leader licensed to challenge your very morality.

Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, currently the effective head of the worldwide Anglican communion, could not have been clearer in his denunciation of what he calls the Reform party’s “isolationist, short term, kneejerk ‘send them home'” approach to asylum and immigration.

I sense that having ruled himself out of the race for next Archbishop of Canterbury, Reverend Cottrell feels free to preach a liberal doctrine.

Unusually, in our interview he pinpoints a political leader as, in effect, failing to demonstrate Christian charity.

Nigel Farage, who describes himself as a practising Christian, won’t be greeting this as the good news of the gospel.

But government ministers will also be feeling nervous.

Battered for allowing record numbers of cross- Channel migrants, and facing legal battles on asylum hotels that may go all the way to the Supreme Court, Labour has tried to head off the Reform challenge with tougher language on border control.

The last thing the prime minister needs right now is to make an enemy of the Almighty – or at least of his representatives on Earth.

Politics

Supreme Court opened crypto wallets to surveillance; privacy must go onchain

Published

10 hours ago

August 30, 2025

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Supreme Court opened crypto wallets to surveillance; privacy must go onchain

Crypto transactions are vulnerable to warrant-free surveillance, making privacy-enhancing tools essential for blockchain’s future.

Politics

Indian court sentences 14 to life in Bitcoin extortion case

Published

14 hours ago

August 30, 2025

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Indian court sentences 14 to life in Bitcoin extortion case

A former BJP legislator and 11 police officials have been convicted for the 2018 abduction of a Surat businessman in a plot to seize over 750 Bitcoin.