$500m for Trump, access for Pakistan: How a crypto-diplomatic bet paid off
The Trump family crypto firm that brought the president a windfall has also served as a vehicle for Pakistan to gain clout with the White
The Trump family crypto firm that brought the president a windfall has also served as a vehicle for Pakistan to gain clout with the White House. Islamabad, Pakistan – When US President Donald Trump’s financial earnings in 2025 were released this week, one figure stood out. His family’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial (WLF), brought him more than $500m 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. Questions over utility 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. More broadly, how much money moves through such channels remains unclear. A senior banking executive in Pakistan, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no reliable estimate exists and that figures in circulation are inferred from formal inflows rather than directly measured. Informal channels are thought to account for roughly a 10th of remittances, with stablecoins forming an unquantified portion of that amount. That uncertainty comes against a backdrop of record formal inflows. Pakistan received $38.3bn 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, the country’s central bank. In May, the latest month for which data is available, inflows reached a record $4.25bn. The central bank expects remittances to cross $42bn this year. That raises a broader question over the rationale for the deal itself. “Why are people using USDT [the Tether stablecoin] in the first place, considering Pakistan is receiving record remittances through the banking channel, and transfers now happen instantaneously in many cases?” Ibrahim Khalil, a Canada-based banking and finance professional, told Al Jazeera. “Whatever the reason, [these] people are avoiding the banking channel. USD1 will not solve that issue if banking channels are involved.” Khalil also pointed to a practical constraint. Pakistan’s central bank held $16.5bn in reserves in late June, enough to cover roughly two months of imports.
The BriefWire