Tech
Pakistan Launches Digital Assets Authority
- The Pakistan advisory body, the cryptocurrency council, suggested creating a new regulatory body.
- The Statista report reveals that the crypto market of Pakistan is growing rapidly and anticipated to amount to more than 27 million by this year.
The Ministry of Finance of Pakistan has recently publicized a dedicated body which will be responsible for regulating blockchain-based financial infrastructure in Pakistan.
On May 21, a state-owned broadcaster, PTV reported that the regulatory body is said to be the Pakistan Digital Assets Authority (PDAA) and it will oversee license regulate exchanges, custodians, wallets, tokenized platforms and decentralized finance applications.
The federal minister of finance and revenue of Pakistan, Muhammad Aurangzeb reported to the broadcaster that Pakistan should regulate to lead not to just catch up in the crypto market.
He further added that with building PDAA, we are making a framework that is futuristic and safeguards consumers, invites global investment and keeps the country as a leader of financial innovation.
The Responsibility Of The New Body
The PDAA will also be responsible for tokenizing national assets and government debt, easing monetization or surplus electricity via regulated BTC mining in Pakistan and aiding startups to create blockchain-based solutions at scale.
The Pakistan advisory body, the cryptocurrency council suggested to make a new regulatory body. The advisory body was introduced on March 14 and Chanpeng Zhao, the co-founder of Binance was positioned as an advisor.
The chief executive officer of Crypto Council of Pakistan, Bilal Bin Saqib asserted that, this is not only about crypto, but it is about rewriting our financial future, broadening access and making new export channels via Tokenization, digital finance and Web3 revolution.
The Federal Investigation Agency of Pakistan has so far proposed a regulatory design for virtual assets made to address terrorism financing, money laundering provisions, and Know Your Customer concerns, as reported by the local newspaper, The Express Tribune.
Two years ago, an ex Minister of State for Finance and Revenue, Aisha Ghaus Pasha stated that the country will never legalize crypto because of the potential for virtual assets to avoid regulations made by the Financial Action Task Force, the supranational body that polices finance for money laundering.
The Statista report reveals that the crypto market of Pakistan is growing rapidly and reports that the number of crypto users is anticipated to amount to more than 27 million by this year.
