The chairman of the country's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) said Pakistan did not wake up one morning and decide to love cryptocurrencies.
The country is in the unusual position of having one of the largest crypto markets on the planet, yet with no guardrails, PVARA chairman Bilal bin Saqib said Thursday at Consensus Hong Kong 2026.
“In 2025, Pakistan has already realized that around 40 million of its citizens are trading digital assets back home with no rules, no protections and no profits,” Bin Saqib said via virtual link. “There was a market, but there was no regulation. So we were trying to move from a gray market to a controlled market.”
In fact, Bin Saqib said Pakistan boasts the third largest cryptocurrency market in terms of retail activity, ahead of countries such as Germany and Japan. This is because Pakistan is not only an emerging economy but also a young country demographically. Approximately 70% of the population of 250 million people are under the age of 30.
“We are one of the most tech-savvy groups of young people on the planet,” said PVARA President. “We have over 100 million unbanked people, people who have no means of saving, no means of investing, no way out of the economic class. That's why cryptocurrencies and blockchain are not a luxury for Pakistan. This is a ladder for the masses.”
Pakistan’s Bitcoin Strategic Reserve and National Mining Plan
One area of interest for the cryptocurrency industry is Bin Saqib's announcement at Bitcoin Las Vegas last year that Pakistan plans to establish a strategic Bitcoin BTC $68,087.00 reserve fund to support Bitcoin mining.
Bin Saqib noted that this is not just an “announcement”, adding: “Speed without structure can be dangerous when you are dealing with something as strategic as Bitcoin reserves or national energy allocation.”
Regarding reserves, Bin Saqib said, “The first step is to identify the digital assets held by the state, move them into a formal state-controlled custody framework, and establish transparency, accountability and standards. This is not about speculation, but about treating digital assets as sovereign assets.”
On the mining side, he said, “We have identified sites with surplus power and are currently evaluating the economics and impact, while also working with miners and AI computing operators around the world.”
The project aims to follow a “responsible partnership model”, Bin Saqib said. Because this is not just an isolated cryptographic experiment.
“This is part of a broader strategy for energy optimization, computing power and national digital infrastructure, because Bitcoin mining and AI data centers are two mechanisms for converting untapped energy into our nation's productive capacity.”
