Islamabad, Pakistan – When US President Donald Trump's financial earnings for 2025 were released this week, one figure stood out. His family's crypto venture, World Liberty Financial (WLF), brought him more than $500 million from token sales alone last year, part of a broader crypto windfall worth hundreds of millions of dollars more.
Pakistan was among the first countries to sign up with the firm. In January, Pakistan's Ministry of Finance signed a memorandum of understanding with SC Financial Technologies, an affiliate of World Liberty Financial, to explore the use of its dollar-pegged USD1 stablecoin for cross-border payments.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir were both present as the firm's executives, including Trump adviser Steve Witkoff's son Zach, were welcomed to Islamabad. Witkoff Jr signed the agreement with Pakistan's Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb.
Nearly six months later, Pakistani officials have confirmed that there has been no pilot project to use USD1, no licences issued and no known transactions using the stablecoin. Yet, despite the gap between the ceremony and the official aim of the MoU, analysts say Pakistan has achieved something no less valuable than the half-a-billion dollars earned by Trump from World Liberty Financial: it has given Islamabad rare access to the Trump administration.
A stablecoin is a digital currency pegged to a fixed value, almost always the US dollar, designed to move money over the internet without banks. USD1 is World Liberty Financial's version. The firm earns interest on the reserves backing each coin, meaning wider use of USD1 generates income for its owners, including the Trump family.
Pakistan is already one of the world's largest crypto markets. According to the Chainalysis crypto adoption index, the country ranked third globally last year, behind India and the United States, with much of the informal crypto activity believed to flow through Tether's USDT, the world's largest stablecoin.
There are no indications that USD1 featured in any Pakistani transactions. A senior banking executive in Pakistan, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no reliable estimate exists and that informal channels are thought to account for roughly a tenth of remittances.
That uncertainty comes against a backdrop of record formal inflows. Pakistan received $38.3 billion in remittances in the last financial year, its highest-ever total and a 27 percent increase over the previous year, according to the State Bank of Pakistan. In May, inflows reached a record $4.25 billion.
"Why are people using USDT in the first place, considering Pakistan is receiving record remittances through the banking channel?" asked Ibrahim Khalil, a Canada-based banking and finance professional. "USD1 will not solve that issue if banking channels are involved."
In March, the Virtual Assets Act created a permanent regulator, the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA), with powers to license firms and impose prison sentences. In April, the State Bank cleared banks to open accounts for licensed crypto firms. But PVARA is still only accepting preliminary applications, with full licensing rules yet to be published.
The senior banking executive cautioned that the MoU is exploratory, with no commitment to deploy any particular stablecoin. Any firm meeting PVARA's licensing requirements could ultimately serve the same function.
The diplomatic logic behind the agreement is harder to dismiss. The World Liberty Financial delegation first arrived in Islamabad in April last year, days after a deadly attack in Indian-administered Kashmir pushed India and Pakistan towards renewed tensions. In June last year, Pakistan nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump also hosted Munir for lunch at the White House in June 2025, marking the first time a US president had received a Pakistani army chief who was not also head of state. The January MoU came just before the US-Israeli war on Iran, during which Pakistan positioned itself as a mediator.
Bilal Bin Saqib, who chairs PVARA, told Bloomberg that the crypto push had opened doors and rebuilt trust with Washington. The White House has said that there were no conflicts of interest.
"The MoU was nothing more than an instrument of access. It had no real policy basis," said Khurram Husain, a Karachi-based economist. "Access was the calculation, and it paid off spectacularly." Khalil concurred: "My bottom line would be that this whole exercise was pay for access."
Source: www.aljazeera.com