Pakistan is now too financially entangled with a US President to be handled as a rogue actor with out triggering blow-back in Washington’s highest workplace. That’s the final insurance coverage coverage.
NEW DELHI: On 14 March 2025, the Authorities of Pakistan launched the Pakistan Crypto Council (PCC), an entity created ostensibly to control and promote the nation’s digital asset infrastructure.
The PCC was established immediately underneath the Ministry of Finance, with Bilal Bin Saqib, a UK-based entrepreneur and social media persona with restricted background in formal monetary regulation, appointed as its founding CEO.
Inside weeks, he was additionally named Particular Assistant to the Prime Minister on Blockchain and Crypto, and accorded a Minister of State standing.
Simply over a month later, between 26 and 27 April 2025, the PCC signed a Letter of Intent with World Liberty Monetary (WLF), a Delaware-based crypto agency, majority-controlled by the Trump household. This settlement proposed sweeping collaboration on blockchain infrastructure, the usage of WLF’s stablecoin (USD1) in Pakistan’s monetary system, tokenization of nationwide belongings, and institution of a nationwide DeFi sandbox.
A nationwide DeFi sandbox is a government-led initiative that gives a managed, supervised surroundings the place decentralized finance (DeFi) tasks can check real-world monetary functions with relaxed regulatory constraints—whereas nonetheless making certain oversight and client safety.
On the time of signing, the PCC had no parliamentary backing, no regulatory authority underneath Pakistani regulation, and crypto remained unlawful as per State Financial institution of Pakistan (SBP) directives.
But WLF’s delegation, together with co-founders Zachary Folkman and Zachary Witkoff, was granted entry to Pakistan’s highest office-holders—Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, SBP Governor Jameel Ahmad, SECP Chairman Akif Saeed, and most notably, Chief of Military Workers Common Asim Munir.
Common Munir’s presence on this total deal is particularly vital. The Military has no formal jurisdiction over Pakistan’s monetary expertise coverage. His involvement indicators that the settlement had strategic, not merely financial, motivations.
Sources near the matter have confirmed that the assembly was facilitated through Gulf-based intermediaries with longstanding ties to each the Pakistani navy and Trump-linked monetary networks.
World Liberty Monetary shouldn’t be an bizarre fintech start-up. It’s majority-controlled by entities held by Donald Trump and his quick household. As of early 2025, Trump and his sons—Donald Jr., Eric Trump, and Barron Trump—collectively retained direct possession of over 22.5 billion WLFI tokens, the governance token of the WLF ecosystem.
Disclosures present that roughly 75% of revenues generated from token gross sales have been earmarked for entities managed by the Trump household. Donald Trump himself reported over $57 million in private earnings from WLF-related actions in 2024.
On 22 April 2025, a serious terror assault orchestrated by Pakistan navy and executed by its terror arm, Lashkar-e-Taiba struck Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir, killing 26 civilians.
The WLF-PCC deal, signed simply 4 to 5 days after this mass-casualty assault, raises a troubling speculation, one which is prone to be confirmed within the coming weeks: that the settlement was not an financial initiative however a geopolitical hedge by Common Munir—meant to purchase goodwill with Donald Trump and his industrial community, understanding the assault would provoke worldwide backlash.
The monetary stakes for WLF are non-trivial. By gaining early entry to Pakistan’s remittance corridors (over $30 billion yearly), WLF positioned its USD1 stablecoin for mass adoption.
Specialists say that even a modest penetration of those flows—say 10%—might conservatively yield $75-150 million yearly in transaction charges and reserve float for Trump and his household, with vital upside if adoption scales.
In response to consultants monitoring rising market stablecoin fashions, such estimates are based mostly on typical income constructions involving 0.75-2.5% in mixed transaction charges, FX spreads, and yield from reserve holdings on volumes starting from $3-5 billion yearly.
Moreover, Pakistan’s provide to allocate 2,000 MW of surplus electrical energy for crypto mining offers WLF with low-cost infrastructure that will be commercially unviable in regulated U.S. or European jurisdictions.
Additional, WLF’s governance token—$WLFI—is basically held by entities linked to the Trump household.
Pakistani institutional participation or state-endorsed integration of $WLFI into nationwide tasks might artificially increase its worth, making a direct monetary windfall for Trump-owned belongings.
In the meantime, knowledge collected from KYC processes, behavioural analytics, and blockchain utilization patterns in Pakistan could possibly be monetized or leveraged geopolitically.
At its core, the WLF–PCC engagement displays a convergence of three danger vectors: (1) a fragile, military-dominated Pakistani state trying to hedge towards diplomatic fallout from cross-border terror; (2) a non-public U.S. entity with entry to a former and now incumbent U.S. President; and (3) a regulatory vacuum enabling non-transparent asset flows.
Whereas marketed as a fintech leap for Pakistan, the deal seems as an alternative to be a geopolitical backchannel—one which monetizes state vulnerability, masks strategic intent, and deepens the opacity between public coverage and personal achieve.
Since Donald Trump’s return to the U.S. presidency in January 2025, the strategic logic behind Munir’s facilitation of the WLF deal has turn into unmistakably clear. This isn’t a hedge towards a potential Trump victory—it’s now a functioning immunity mechanism.
Trump’s re-election transforms WLF from a speculative enterprise right into a politically protected enterprise. Any monetary or regulatory motion towards Pakistan that dangers undermining WLF—whether or not by OFAC, FinCEN, FATF, and even the IMF—would now run into an enormous battle of curiosity on the high of the U.S. authorities. The Trump household’s monetary publicity creates a prohibitive impact on enforcement companies.
Companies underneath the Government Department will likely be politically constrained from sanctioning or penalizing a international state so intently tied to the president’s personal earnings.
This offers Pakistan an unprecedented strategic buffer. Hardline responses to terror escalation, terror financing, or crypto abuse might now be delayed, softened, or totally neutralized.
Put up the deal it was assessed that the IMF, the place the U.S. is the most important shareholder, could ease conditionalities to guard what will likely be described as “personal American innovation” in Pakistan. Equally, it was feared that the FATF could soften technical assessments underneath diplomatic stress, particularly if Pakistan claims progress on blockchain transparency.
Pakistan is now too financially entangled with a U.S. President to be handled as a rogue actor with out triggering blowback in Washington’s highest workplace. That’s the final insurance coverage coverage.
The effectiveness of this geopolitical firewall was examined nearly instantly and the assessments and considerations proved appropriate.
Following the 22 April 2025 Pahalgam bloodbath, India mounted a full diplomatic offensive. Categorized dossiers have been shared with key stakeholders on the Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF) and the Monetary Motion Job Power (FATF), urging punitive measures and accountability.
Regardless of this, the IMF proceeded to launch a scheduled $1.2 billion tranche to Pakistan in early Might, citing progress in financial reforms and digital infrastructure. No point out was manufactured from the assault or its sponsors. Indian objections have been formally famous however had no bearing on the ultimate resolution. Behind the scenes, senior IMF officers privately acknowledged that Washington’s delegation didn’t assist withholding funds—regardless of the gravity of the Pahalgam incident.
Then in June 2025, on the FATF session in France, the matter was once more raised. India pressed laborious for Pakistan to be relisted on the gray record, presenting intelligence on continued state complicity in terror financing. But FATF declined to take any adversarial motion.
This sequence makes clear that Munir’s achievement was not the crypto deal itself, however its strategic timing. It gave multilateral establishments a believable excuse to defer laborious selections, and gave the Trump administration a monetary purpose to mute its personal companies.
