The head of Pakistan's crypto council, Bilal Bin Saqib, has just announced that the country is officially establishing a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve.
The announcement was made during a keynote speech at the Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Las Vegas Nevada.
In his speech, Saqib said that the country is following the United States lead in establishing a Bitcoin strategic reserve and is embracing pro-crypto regulatory policies.
"Today is a very historic day. Today, I announce the Pakistani government is setting up its own government-led Strategic Reserve, and we want to thank the United States of America again because we were inspired by them"
This marks a monumental U-turn from Pakistan’s previously hardline stance on cryptocurrency, where digital assets were widely regarded as illegal and unregulated.
The move reflects a growing trend among nation-states to adopt pro-crypto policies, accelerated by the regulatory pivot in the United States under the Trump administration.
Pakistan’s embrace of Bitcoin didn’t happen overnight. In early 2025, the government formed the National Crypto Council to explore frameworks for regulation, innovation, and foreign investment in the blockchain sector.
The council has proposed several policies, including the use of runoff energy to mine BTC or data centers, and accumulating BTC for a national treasury.
Earlier this month, the Council announced the allocation of 2,000 megawatts of excess energy to Bitcoin mining and high-performance computing data centers.
Binance's co-founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao is sitting on one of the advisory seats of the Council. CZ was appointed in April, and his role would include advising on crypto regulations, blockchain infrastructure, and the adoption of digital assets.
Trump's World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a decentralized financial protocol, signed a letter of intent on April 27 to help the country to tokenize real world assets, build DeFi architecture, and experiment with crypto products.