Pakistan ranked third globally in Chainalysis's 2025 Crypto Adoption Index, placing it among the top three countries in the world, and holds an estimated $25 to $30 billion in digital assets across a user base of 20 to 40 million people. That scale, combined with a new licensing regime and a loosening of banking restrictions, has prompted international exchanges to treat the country as a priority market rather than a footnote. Pakistan's underlying digital infrastructure reinforces the case: the country graduates roughly 50,000 computer science students annually, counts more than 116 million internet users, and supports over four million digital freelancers, factors that make it a compelling target for exchanges beyond raw user numbers alone.

Regulatory Overhaul Opens the Door

Pakistan's parliament passed the Virtual Assets Act 2026 on March 6, formally creating the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) as the country's dedicated crypto regulator. The move represented a dramatic reversal of official policy: as recently as 2023, Pakistani government officials had publicly stated that cryptocurrencies would "never be legalised," making the current overhaul one of the more striking regulatory about-faces in recent emerging-market history. The State Bank of Pakistan followed on April 14 by allowing commercial banks to open accounts for PVARA-licensed Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs). That decision ended a blanket prohibition on crypto transactions that had been in place since 2018. All exchanges, custodians, brokers, wallet operators, and token issuers must now obtain a PVARA licence. Operating without one carries penalties of up to PKR 50 million (roughly $179,000) and up to five years in prison. Binance and HTX have already received No Objection Certificates. Bitget is actively recruiting a CEO/Managing Director for the country, according to a June 2026 report by ProPakistani.

Bitget's Pitch: One Account for Everything

Bitget, which serves more than 125 million users worldwide, is positioning itself around what it calls a Universal Exchange (UEX) model. The platform bundles crypto trading, tokenized equities, forex, commodities, and AI-assisted tools into a single account. Tokenized equities are blockchain-based instruments that track the price of real-world stocks; they allow investors to gain exposure to companies including Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Meta, and Tesla without opening a foreign brokerage account.

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said the product directly addresses how Pakistani retail traders currently operate, noting that many require multiple accounts across different financial institutions to manage their finances, as quoted by The Express Tribune in a report by Usman Hanif. According to third-party estimates from TradingKey and Cryptopolitan, the exchange recorded more than $1 billion in tokenized stock trading volume in 2026.

Geopolitics Reshaping Where Money Goes

The timing of exchange interest is not purely regulatory. Ibrahim Amin, a real estate and banking analyst quoted in the Tribune's original report, tied shifting investor behavior to regional instability. "Military conflict in the Middle East has temporarily shifted investment preferences towards more liquid global assets, particularly cryptocurrencies," Amin said. Pakistani investors have historically parked significant capital in Gulf Cooperation Council real estate markets. As regional instability made that asset class less attractive, some of that capital moved toward digital assets.

Heightened India-Pakistan tensions through 2025 and into 2026 added a further dimension to this shift, accelerating domestic capital-flight concerns and increasing the appeal of borderless assets for Pakistani savers seeking to insulate their wealth from geopolitical risk on their own doorstep.

Pakistan's own diplomatic posture has also shifted. In January 2026, Pakistan's Ministry of Finance signed a memorandum of understanding with SC Financial Technologies, an affiliate of World Liberty Financial, a firm connected to the Trump family, to pilot the USD1 stablecoin for cross-border payments. The deal was signed in the presence of Army Chief Asim Munir. As of early July 2026, no live USD1 transactions have occurred and no licences have been issued, but reporting by Al Jazeera and The Diplomat found that the MOU generated significant diplomatic access to the US government at a sensitive moment in Pakistan-US relations.

The Shariah Question Has Not Been Settled

The biggest structural uncertainty facing any exchange operating in Pakistan is religious compliance. On June 10, 2026, senior Islamic scholars issued a fatwa declaring crypto payments "impermissible" under Shariah principles. The signatories included a former Federal Shariat Court judge, lending the ruling considerable institutional weight and signalling that official religious bodies viewed the question as settled law rather than ongoing debate. Prominent Islamic scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani characterized cryptocurrency as "merely the recording of fictitious numbers in an account."

PVARA Chairman Bilal bin Saqib met with Mufti Usmani on July 11 to open a formal dialogue. In a statement posted after the meeting, Bin Saqib described the discussion as constructive and indicated that blockchain, digital assets, and stablecoins "merit careful technical assessment alongside rigorous Shariah examination." PVARA appears to be pushing for a distinction between speculative crypto tokens and asset-backed instruments, such as tokenized real-world assets, that may be more compatible with Islamic finance principles. More than 96 percent of Pakistan's population is Muslim, making Shariah compliance a commercial requirement rather than a niche consideration for any exchange seeking mainstream adoption.

The Remittance Opportunity

Beyond retail trading, industry groups are watching Pakistan's crypto reforms for their effect on remittances. Pakistan received between $35 billion and $38 billion in annual remittances in recent years. The Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan has projected that, if crypto develops into a stable digital payment channel, that figure could rise toward $50 billion annually. Multiple analysts cited in industry research project the broader on-chain remittance market could reach $300 billion by 2030.

With PVARA still accepting public comment on its Virtual Asset Services Regulations 2026, the licensing framework is not yet final. Former Finance Minister Salman Shah offered a note of caution in a February analysis published by The Diplomat: "Deregulated digital currency cannot work in a heavily centralized economy without first addressing broader fiscal reforms." Pakistan's regulatory turn is real and significant, but the gap between framework and functioning market remains wide. The most consequential signal to watch in the months ahead will be whether PVARA's final licensing rules create space for Islamic finance product tiers, a question that will go a long way toward determining how broadly exchange services can be adopted across the country's mainstream population.