Can Binance Founder Help Pakistan Become a Crypto Power?

When Changpeng Zhao — better known in crypto circles simply as CZ — stood flanked by Pakistan’s flags in April 2025 and signed his name as Strategic Adviser to the Pakistan Crypto Council (PCC), it was more than a photo opportunity. It was a signal heard across the global digital finance world. The idea that the Binance founder could help Pakistan become a crypto power is no longer a distant aspiration — it is an active, government-backed mission that has already begun reshaping how the world perceives Pakistan’s financial future. Finance Minister Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb said it plainly: “We are sending way.

Pakistan’s Crypto Awakening: From Skepticism to Strategy

Regulators oscillated between issuing warnings and maintaining a studious silence, leaving an estimated 20 million Pakistani crypto users operating primarily through offshore platforms. The government collected no taxes from these transactions, and no formal consumer protections existed. The crypto economy was effectively running parallel to the state — visible but unacknowledged.

That changed in early 2025. Islamabad launched the Pakistan Crypto Council, established under the Finance Division, with an ambitious mandate: to build a regulatory framework that simultaneously embraces innovation and protects investors. The PCC’s inaugural meeting, chaired by Finance Minister Aurangzeb, brought together the Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), and Federal Secretaries of Law and IT. The unified attendance of Pakistan’s top financial regulators was itself a statement — the government was no longer treating crypto as a fringe concern.

The appointment of CZ as Strategic Adviser immediately followed. CZ also held separate meetings with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Deputy Prime Minister Senator Ishaq Dar, underscoring just how seriously the highest levels of Pakistan’s government are approaching the Pakistan crypto power vision.

Why CZ? The Weight Behind the Appointment

Changpeng Zhao is not simply a successful entrepreneur — he is arguably the single most recognizable name in global crypto outside of Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator. As the co-founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, CZ built a platform that processes billions of dollars in transactions daily and has introduced hundreds of millions of people across emerging markets to digital finance.

His track record in emerging markets makes him particularly relevant to Pakistan’s ambitions. He has already taken on advisory roles in Kyrgyzstan, where he is guiding Web3 infrastructure development and blockchain education projects. His philosophy is straightforward: countries with young, digitally engaged populations have a structural advantage in crypto adoption that older, more institutional economies simply cannot replicate.

Pakistan Crypto Council CEO Bilal Bin Saqib articulated what many in the government were thinking: “There is no better person to guide us on this journey than CZ — a pioneer who built the world’s largest crypto exchange and changed the way billions think about financial freedom.”

CZ’s own words about Pakistan were direct. “Pakistan is a country of 240 million people, over 60% of whom are under the age of 30,” he said. “The potential here is limitless.” He has since gone on record predicting that if Pakistan maintains its current pace of adoption and regulatory development, it could become one of the top global crypto leaders by 2030 — a striking forecast from a man who has watched dozens of countries attempt, and often fail, to build credible digital asset ecosystems.

Can Binance Founder Help Pakistan Become a Crypto Power? The Evidence So Far

The evidence on the ground suggests the partnership is already producing results. Within months of the PCC’s formation and CZ’s appointment, Pakistan made several concrete moves that analysts described as unusually swift for a country known for slow-moving bureaucracy.

Pakistan established the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) to oversee exchanges and virtual asset service providers. The regulator issued No Objection Certificates (NOCs) to both Binance and HTX, allowing them to begin the process of local registration — a critical step toward formalizing the market and bringing offshore users back into a regulated domestic ecosystem.

The government also allocated 2,000 megawatts of power specifically for Bitcoin mining and AI data centers, a bold commitment that signals Pakistan is willing to deploy real national resources toward the digital economy. In a further milestone, Pakistan signed a $2 billion MoU with Binance for tokenized securities — a move that CZ himself described as a sign of genuine market maturity, noting that tokenizing stocks and government securities signals credibility to global institutional investors.

These are not symbolic gestures. They represent a structured attempt to use CZ’s strategic guidance to attract global capital, talent, and infrastructure to Pakistan’s emerging blockchain ecosystem.

Pakistan’s Demographic Advantage in the Crypto Race

One of the most compelling arguments for Pakistan’s potential as a crypto powerhouse is entirely structural: its population. With more than 240 million citizens and a median age well below 30, Pakistan has one of the most digitally native young populations on earth. Chainalysis, the leading blockchain analytics firm, consistently ranks Pakistan among the top nations globally for grassroots crypto adoption — a ranking driven not by institutional investment, but by organic, peer-to-peer usage at the individual level.

The Binance app alone ranks as the fourth most downloaded finance application in Pakistan, according to data from Similarweb. That figure does not include the millions of Pakistanis using other platforms. The appetite for digital financial tools is not something that needs to be manufactured — it already exists at a massive scale. What has been missing is the regulatory clarity to channel that appetite productively, safely, and in a way that generates tax revenue and economic growth for the state.

As Ali Farid Khwaja, chairman of KTrade Securities, put it: “For a country where roughly 20 million people are already on offshore global trading platforms, the government is not collecting any taxes as those platforms are not locally licensed.” Bringing those users — and their economic activity — onshore is one of the core goals of the PCC’s regulatory agenda.

The Challenges Pakistan Cannot Afford to Ignore

Ambition and opportunity, however, exist alongside serious risks that the Binance founder Pakistan crypto power narrative cannot simply paper over.

The most sensitive concern is security. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the armed group waging an insurgency against the Pakistani state, has publicly announced plans to use cryptocurrencies for fundraising, specifically urging supporters to use Binance for donations. Research fellow Mona Thakkar of the International Centre for the Study of Violent Extremism has confirmed that TTP and its factions are increasingly exploring digital assets for anonymously moving funds across borders.

The United Nations Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee has also raised broader concerns about extremist groups — including ISIS and al-Qaeda — exploiting digital asset infrastructure. For Pakistan to position itself as a credible regional crypto hub, it will need to demonstrate that its regulatory framework actively and effectively prevents such misuse, rather than inadvertently enabling it.

There are also questions about CZ’s own background. He pleaded guilty in 2024 to charges related to enabling money laundering at Binance and served a four-month prison sentence, before receiving a presidential pardon from President Donald Trump in October 2025. Critics in Pakistan questioned whether proper due diligence was conducted before his appointment. Zaki Khalid, a Rawalpindi-based intelligence analyst, called the process “unusual.” These are legitimate questions that the government will need to answer with transparency if it wants the international community to take Pakistan’s crypto regulatory ambitions seriously.

Infrastructure limitations, macroeconomic instability, energy supply challenges, and cybersecurity gaps round out a list of obstacles that require sustained political will — not just high-profile advisory appointments — to overcome.

How Pakistan Compares to Global Crypto Leaders

To understand what Pakistan is trying to become, it helps to look at where it is trying to go. Finance Minister Aurangzeb has explicitly cited Singapore, Dubai, and Switzerland as the benchmarks — nations that built globally competitive Web3 ecosystems by combining clear regulation, institutional openness, and world-class infrastructure.

Those comparisons are aspirational, but they are not entirely unrealistic given Pakistan’s scale. Singapore became a crypto hub partly because of its proximity to massive Asian markets and its reputation for regulatory clarity. Dubai leveraged its existing status as a global financial crossroads and created the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) as a dedicated, crypto-specific regulator. Switzerland built its position over decades around financial neutrality and legal innovation.

Pakistan has none of those established reputations — but it has something those countries lack: sheer demographic volume. A regulated Pakistani crypto market with even modest per-capita participation would represent tens of millions of active users — a figure that would command global attention from exchanges, blockchain developers, and institutional investors alike.

CZ has advised young Pakistanis to look at blockchain and cryptocurrency as uniquely accessible career pathways. “If a young person wants to start a bank, it’s pretty limited opportunities… blockchain and cryptocurrency are virtual, there is no possibility of getting turned away,” he said. Paired with investment in education, incubators, and developer infrastructure, that philosophy could help Pakistan grow the domestic human capital it needs to sustain a long-term position in the global digital asset economy.

The Road to 2030: Pakistan’s Crypto Power Roadmap

Analysts who study the region say the next 24 to 36 months are the most critical: this is when regulatory frameworks will either solidify into something credible and internationally recognized, or collapse under political pressure, institutional inertia, or misuse.

The key milestones to watch include the full operationalization of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, the successful onboarding of Binance and other major exchanges into the local licensing framework, the development of blockchain education programs at the university level, and the performance of the tokenized securities market created under the Binance MoU.

Pakistan’s ability to align with global anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) standards will also be decisive. International partners — including the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), with which Pakistan has had a complicated history — will be watching closely. Demonstrating that a crypto-forward regulatory regime can coexist with robust financial crime prevention will be the true test of whether CZ’s advisory role translates into lasting institutional credibility.

Conclusion

The appointment of the Binance founder to help Pakistan become a crypto power is genuinely historic. It reflects a government willing to make bold, unconventional decisions at a time when the global financial system is in rapid flux. It acknowledges, finally, that 20 million Pakistani crypto users cannot simply be wished away — they must be regulated, protected, and incorporated into a framework that benefits both the individual and the state.

But landmark moments require follow-through to become lasting legacies. Pakistan now has the attention of the global blockchain and digital asset community. It has a credible adviser in CZ, an emerging regulatory structure in the PCC and PVARA, and a demographic profile that any crypto entrepreneur in the world would envy. What it needs next is consistency, transparency, and the political courage to stay the course even when it becomes difficult.

If you are an investor, developer, or policymaker watching Pakistan’s crypto journey unfold, now is the time to engage. Explore Pakistan’s evolving crypto regulatory framework, connect with the Pakistan Crypto Council, and assess whether this rapidly developing market aligns with your digital finance strategy. The window of early-mover advantage does not stay open forever — and if CZ’s track record is any guide, Pakistan’s window may be shorter than most expect.

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