Topic: Pakistan taking a U-turn (Read 464 times)

it can be the effect of the fact that big countries legalizes crypto and doing so well with it, like how the recent US election campaign also try to cater to crypto holders.

the thing with some country is that, they are hesitant to make a bold and significant move towards new asset like this, worrying that it could create a problem, but once they figured out that the well developed country are having no problem at all instead can help solve some of the problem, they'd see the good light in it.

el salvador's case of paying off its debt by just holding crypto also shed a good light toward crypto in general.

Maybe this is more to this that we don't know or this is just another plot by some group of people in the government that want Bitcoin to be free will for everyone. There is nothing bad in it but a place like Pakistan, hmm I really hope it comes to past but there is definitely things that are hidden under this U turn. My first fear and sanction that will follow them is terrorism and money laundering, there is high history of these two from the region.

What is the world bank saying about this? Will they continue to lend them money? What about IMF? This guys don't give loans if you don't follow there guideline. If they don't do their bid, they definitely not having any free money that will be coming their countries again.

I am from India and to be honest it's good to hear that Pakistain is in favor of legalizing crypto.
The country has been not doing so well with it's economic situation and I hope this action by the government improves the financial situation of the country.
All in all, I wish Pakistan good luck and hope it creates regulations that support crypto.

A country can change their regulation about crypto especially for Bitcoin and Ethereum or with other coins. That will depends on the government how they can see the benefits of crypto to their country especially their citizens. I don't have a clue which other countries that will reconsider their laws about Bitcoin and crypto at large because that will depends on how will be each government of the country thinks about Bitcoin and crypto.

The thing is when the government research what is the benefit of Bitcoin and crypto to their citizens and they found that can gives a chance to their citizens to have a better life, they may change their laws soon. But we know that will not as easy as we thinks because in the government, many interests behind that so when they cannot gets the benefits for them, they will not adopts Bitcoin like the other countries.

Support on CBDC means hate against Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Like the USA government with Biden and Harris want to launch the USA's CBDC and we already saw their approaches as anti-Bitcoin, anti-cryptocurrency as much as possible.

Trump is anti-CBDC and this way, he has more reasons to support Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. It is not a must condition that if he doesn't like CBDC, he will automatically support Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, but has more reasons to do so.

If governments launch their CBDCs, they will not want their citizens ignore CBDCs and only or mainly use bitcoin and cryptocurrencies for transfers in societies. To make sure CBDCs will be used mainly by governemts, there is no other way to ban or put many restrictions on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

I agree with others who have pointed out that there's a major difference between being friendly toward decentralized cryptos like Bitcoin or Ethereum and allowing the state bank to issue its own currency. What they're doing is legalizing CBDC, and that can be coherent with maintaining a general crypto ban. Because their problem with cryptos isn't that they are digital; it's that they are produced in a decentralized way by someone who isn't state authorities.

Just what I always believe in, there is no law that is set on stone especially when it comes to technology and its application.  Pakistan is indeed against cryptocurrency but I believe what changes their stance is the fact that Bitcoin is getting accepted and legalize in different country especially the USA and other European Country.

It is a good thing that they had decided to change their stance since they had been missing big time when they see Bitcoin as tools for illegal stuff when the truth is that it works the same as other currency except it is decentralized and far from corruption.


I believe the country, Pakistan, is now looking to legalize Cryptocurrency as what @OP cited.  That maybe a possible Uturn if not an actual U-turn as of this date.

Countries and personalities that have once mentioned their hate and dislike of Bitcoin can always change. That's why Pakistan, known people in the world can give their stance in crypto as a hater but then they eventually are going to like it. There's no one that can dictate what they should like and dislike but only based on their observation and the trend that can be beneficial to them with this action by the government of Pakistan.

Let's just hope that the majority of those that have expressed dislike to Bitcoin will also change their stance.

I'm a bit confused. Is it really a U-turn? It doesn't seem so. The past policy was clear that Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies aren't legal tender, and that banks and other financial institutions are not allowed to provide services to cryptocurrency exchanges. Neither are they allowed to accommodate transactions involving cryptocurrencies.

So, what has changed? What specifically is being referred to here as a "major shift" or a "historic shift"? Bitcoin remains not a legal tender, right? Are banks now allowed to serve cryptocurrency exchanges? Or are they now allowed to accept crypto transactions?

If we are talking about cbdc's here, which looks like it, then there is nothing interesting about this news. Cbdc's are pro-surveillance tools that the government would use to monitor people's finances better. It is very different from cryptocurrencies.
Smaller countries with poor economy are more open to the prospect of BTC and crypto. Since the eye of the world isn't really on them and they want to see how new technology can be of use to them, they can experiment with digital currencies.

I won't say that cryptocurrency, especially Bitcoin attracts a massive community or there's a small community within Pakistan. Still, as a local, I can say that I'm living at a village site even where 70% of young ones and almost most of the middle-age literate people know about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. So Yup involvement number cant be specified but it can be said that a major decent number of people are aware of Bitcoin and its use case (Negative or Positive) is a different thing.

Honestly, I'm still in shock after hearing such a statement, haha, as I wasn't expecting any comment at least 5 years later or Bitcoin reaching $1M. Bitcoin will lead the way sooner or later, but I'm satisfied with my stance of taking a look at it.

And BTW the U-turns are quite famous here.

The assumption that cryptos are mainly used for illegal activities is outdated or archaic. Most countries are making comprehensive regulatory laws and legalizing cryptocurrency use. Countries that make friendly laws will attract inventors thereby creating job opportunities, employment opportunities, increase revenue through tax and licencing and transfer of technology. Countries like Bhutan and El Salvador have also made a profit from investing in Bitcoin.

China has the second biggest economy in the world. Unbanning Bitcoin in that country will be beneficial to the industry. Nothing is impossible, countries can change their laws and even China can become friendly in the future.

Nothing apart from wait and watch! Pakistan's entry into the crypto market will make it even harder for many other countries to consider cryptocurrency as legal tender. It will bring down the reputation of cryptocurrency as a whole.

Pakistan government isn't doing it for their citizens. Rather they want to hide a lot of government transactions from the international bodies. It's not really good for cryptocurrency in general.

China? Nahhh I don't think so.
I don't think that they will allow something that they can't even control at first place. At the end of the day, there are still Chinese people that are into crypto despite the government banning it. Other countries especially those developing ones might follow what Pakistan did as well especially now that we might enter the bull run season. As for Pakistan though, Bitcoin being a legal tender is out of the question right now.
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The tender is still in question, it's just that the crypto question moved a little bit in a needed direction, as I've seen through this thread - however, I do think it's a positive change and I hope to more of it to come.

You said it already. It's the profit.
As a developing country, they already realized that they might make some money when they are trying to adopt Bitcoin and who knows. They might follow what Bhutan is doing right now. Investing into Bitcoin. They're making a chance with their decision because they think that they can make money off of Bitcoin, and it's good to see another country doing this.

TBH, I don't really know the reason why certain countries choose to ban the use of cryptocurrencies on their country. They say that crypto has been used for illegal activities, but what about their own fiat currency? Isn't it used for illegal activities as well. Hmmm 

China? Nahhh I don't think so.
I don't think that they will allow something that they can't even control at first place. At the end of the day, there are still Chinese people that are into crypto despite the government banning it. Other countries especially those developing ones might follow what Pakistan did as well especially now that we might enter the bull run season. As for Pakistan though, Bitcoin being a legal tender is out of the question right now.

Too early for that, I agree.
And I do think that the smaller countries will give examples to those like Pakistan and countries like it, that can be used as a.. Learning material, so to speak 
I hope so, at least, that as time goes on, more and more countries will hop onto crypto.

I do see a trend of smaller countries choosing to loosen their belts a bit towards crypto - and it's a good sign, we can say it for sure - even though they will regulate everything to the brim, it's still a start. And maybe, just maybe, they will try to do something with BTC itself, though I don't think so.

Let's face it - if the country is rich, it wouldn't even think about crypto that much and how to play around with it - for what? 
And another stop-line is when a country is very strict in terms of regulations - why it would play around with something that would give the capital the way out of it without much info on the traces of it?
I hope though that it will go fine and better as time goes on.

Of course, any country can flip it's stance on crypto, specially if they found out that it can truly help their country and it's population. And that is one reason many governments in the beginning thought about crypto though, that it has been used by criminals. But we all know that only a small percentage of them really use it, fiat is still the king for this kind of people.

However, I doubt that China though will make a U-turn, it's a authoritative regime, and what they don't like is that their population might keep their money on crypto and then bring out that money out of their country, and that's what they don't like to happen. So I skeptic that they will change their hard line stance in the future, specially for Bitcoin.

Maybe the situation will change in Asia too - though I am too skeptical about such a case simply because why would big countries change something or introduce something new, that isn't tested with trial and error? It's an undiscovered land for them, and they won't do it if the pros won't outweigh the cons.

What happened so radically in Pakistan that the government decided to reconsider its attitude towards cryptocurrency? Maybe the sanctions had such an impact? This is the first thing that comes to mind. It is impossible to trade the way it was before. So they found a way out of the situation.

What other country comes to mind? The Russian Federation. For a very long time, the attitude towards crypto was not the best. Constant laws that limited this activity. The decision to change the attitude came after an incredible number of sanctions were introduced against this country and there was no other solution left on how to use crypto for cross-border transfers.

China does not have such problems. Therefore, you should not expect the situation to change for the better in the near future.

What to do in this case? If we take El Salvador as an example, adopting Bitcoin alone did not make the country rich. It may help slightly or moderately, depending on the investment, but the first beneficiaries of the regulation are the investors.

I don't expect countries with high population density to take more action anytime soon.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are evolving and growing over time. A country cannot remain steadfast in its stance to ban Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in their country - if they see it continuing to grow and more and more adopters in their country, then they will inevitably have to be able to adjust their regulations to the conditions in society that want Bitcoin and cryptocurrency to be legalized. Moreover, the government can also get taxes from trading, and there are many other benefits that they can get from legalizing Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, so there is no harm in them legalizing it and it can actually help build their economy.

According to the proposals, state banks would also be allowed to process digital payment services, facilitating blockchain-based transactions including the buying, selling, and trading of cryptocurrencies.

It is all proposal right now. Nothing set in stone but Pakistan recently had a change of leadership which makes me think that Pakistan may really be going to a different direction. The fact alone that they are venturing out into CBDCs could mean that they are already interested and studying cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. They appointed a new minister of state for finance and revenue this year. Their previous one was very much against crypto so I think it makes sense to assume they are on the path of adopting cryptocurrencies now with the new minister.

I'm aware that the media isn't friendly with Pakistans and other countries but I don't take these guys words serious. If human right is protected in some of the regions where there is huge numbers of human suffocation. Unless there is something they are gaining from this legalization, I wouldn't trust and don't be caught unaware that the west will look away, wouldn't say anything now and then say something about terrorism, and money laundering.

If this true then I will say a good liberation is going on without any fight but I have every reason to say that terrorism will be a major problem about this and the IMF wouldn't agree to this. They will probably seize to give them loans and will ask world bank to stop the funding and other governance body that provide financial support to them. I will wait first what US will do about the legalization process.

Get ready for more terrorists to join the crypto network then! Please understand the background -

- Pakistan is under a huge debt from IMF and World Bank
- These international organisations have forced Pakistan government to increase the tax rates and to cut down the government expenditure
- It is becoming very difficult for the government to directly support the terrorism organisations through the usual route as they are being monitored
- Pakistan government needs to find a way to support the terrorists groups in their country.

That's all! That's where cryptos are coming in.

I think we should not misinterpret the original news. If I am not wrong, Pakistan has not allowed or made virtual currencies (already in existence) legal, but they made some amendments to allow the Central Bank of Pakistan to issue digital currency that Pak citizens can use.  I don't know which technology they will be using, but it will be a centralized digital currency issued by SBP. I really don't understand what virtual currency they will be issuing soon I mean we already using PKR as digital currency on many finance apps, are they planning to introduce CBDs?

Well, whatever they are planning, I am sure they are not going to legalize cryptocurrencies anytime soon, but yeah, this is a first step toward digitalization, and maybe with time they think of legalizing crypto. I also hope the same that they legalize it. But unfortunately, they haven't yet. (Source)

Pakistan, like any country (government) banned the use of bitcoin for fear of losing control over the money supply, and therefore the population. All these tales about illegal activities are just sweet nonsense to scare off the uninitiated from getting acquainted with cryptocurrencies.

Not only supporters of cryptocurrencies are not protected by the government, but also users of the traditional monetary system. Tell me how the government will protect its citizens from bankrupt banks (and loss of depositors' money) or from inflation (which no country in the world is able to contain).

That's not what they saw. What they saw was that cryptocurrencies (CBDC) could be used to exert even greater control over the population. You are mistaken in thinking that the reason for their leniency is their desire to make bitcoin accessible to their citizens.

Are you saying that Bitcoin and Ethereum are now legal tender in Pakistan? I don't believe it.

Their government only proposed amendments. This doesn't mean that they accepted them. And there is not a word about legalizing bitcoin, but about another CBDC.

I am 100% sure that no country will legalize bitcoin as a means of payment (except 3rd world countries like El Salvador) and the maximum that governments will allow is the use of bitcoin as an investment instrument.

The Pakistani Government shot itself on the foot by making such unsubstantiated statement about something they haven't taken any rigorous time to study about, because telling citizens that they will not be protected for using cryptocurrency goes to show that as a government, they didn't do their due diligence about the activities of cryptocurrency before coming out with such statements. The U-TURN they are taking now goes to show that, whatever they thought cryptocurrency was, is not really what they thought it would be and so far, they are at the losing side for coming to the party late. I believe by now as a Government they must have learnt their lessons not to take hasty decisions on new innovation because of petty sentiment and poor research on their own part as a Government.

As it was said - they won't go and push for BTC itself, unfortunately, probably - but rather do their own thing.
But alas, it's far better than bans and things like that, of course.

Why would China push for BTC, when it can pour money into something of its own?
I do think that only smaller countries would try to play around with BTC itself, others would be much more skeptical about it.

The govs will always push for CBDC.
It's essential for them because they can regulate it and control it more.
Not as much as BTC.. Or any other crypto, really, except for stables.

Let us not take it for a surprise, change is always constant. We can all attesting that majority of Bitcoin adoptors today where mostly in doubt about it.

I have actually come to think that who hears about Bitcoin and does not have a second thought about it before investing their funds are mostly those who can possibly be scammed.
Bitcoin is a newly financial technology that has just existed after decades the fiats has existed.

The government has actually tried to make us individually have this negative influence on digital and a decentralized currency like Bitcoin in considerations... They are about the peoples funds but though they (government) are highily greediness feeding fats on the public funds. So alternatively, they fears about the adoption of the system since it is decentralized so they can not get aware with those their authoritative and selfish interests with it.

Now the Pakistan government has woken up earlier which I would not say late because in yead ahead, there would be more countries to adopt legal tendering of Bitcoin without undermining its decentralization anymore.

I am sure that the Pakistan government has since been on research of how they can utilize the use of Bitcoin is if adopted. Then they must have been made understand of how it could verily contribute to their economy and citizens adopting it may somewhere rely a so source of income there.
They did well with the approach i must say.

This may be some kind of precedence that Pakistan is setting, going with the global trend of regulation over outright bans. I feel that we are more likely to see changes rather than backtracking in countries with strict regulations,and then, only when these countries find ways of handling secure digital currencies within their existing frameworks. Then, looking at other countries like China, underground crypto remained popular there, although it never actually moved away from the hardline.

The quotes suggest to me they are planning to roll out a CBDC, not push for Bitcoin & crypto use. I could be wrong but that’s what it looks like. It doesn’t matter any way because as Bitcoin becomes more & more widespread use, they will all have to backtrack.

It's good that they changed the law because it's stupid to abandon Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, which are the innovation of the 21th century. Just imagine, there have been only two types of money before, Coins and Paper, for 21 centuries and then came a brand new type of money, a cryptocurrency. To my mind, it's a sin to ban Bitcoin, it's a crime, really.

By the way, I also think that China will soon take U-turn on Bitcoin because the USA accepting ETFs and is gaining power on it, especially if Trump wins and decides to make his crazy dream realize, that includes trying to getting the rest of Bitcoins mined in the USA. Logically, China should be interested to take some power on Bitcoin from the USA, so they have to change their stance.

My stance on this is that if I were a government official in charge of passing laws, the last thing I would want to do is jump into conclusion about something that is new just because I don't understand. This is why research can never be overemphazied. There are many smart people in the country that can be called upon to study a new technology and give an unbaised report of it based on concrete evidence and not assumptions. It is only through research based on evidence that we advance and make remarkable progress as a society. In many years or months to come there would be countries who would reverse their stance on bitcoin. I hope my country is next.

Lol Pakistan can ban Bitcoin all it wants but the fact is all the guys I know in India and Pakistan trading Bitcoin since 2016/17 are still trading Bitcoin (P2P selling or buying).

Legal tender is a dream most merchants don't need anyway yet. Half the country still runs on cash, only in big cities you can use card, and still its not widely spread.

In effect, no news really. Like you said tho China will be the big deal.

The article content says a different thing compared to what the title carries, and it's a bit misleading. The only improvement I see in here is that they are open to embracing digitisation on their country's currency, creating something they can control both digitally and physically.
 
That's, by the way, in the aspect of government changing from their first decision in regard to technology to more favourable terms is based on who they have in power within the agency and those in power during the time of the current administration.

If there are people who are lovers of innovation, then there should always be a change in some policy regarding that angel; if not a major change, at least a proposal to revisit those old bills can be done.

Personally I don't think that China will lift the BAN soon, it is just not possible to have a control of the money like they want with Bitcoin.
For me the next countries that will embrace Bitcoin will be located in Europe if not the whole EU at once. By embrace I mean that most of them will start having it as a reserve currency.

I think big countries like China or India would love to get their currencies on CDBC rails to have a much wider set of tools to control and regulate them.
Especially China! It's a "treasure" for them and for their people to use it because it can be regulated to the brim and used as a lever in some situations, in my opinion.

Governments already accept digital currencies launch by themselves through central banks and distribute through commercial banks too. They're going to develop,  test and launch CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies), a newest form of their national digital currencies.

It is big difference compares to Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies that are not launched by governments, central banks and they don't control these currencies. Except is they can control altcoin blockchains if they want by arresting founders of these blockchains and force them to do it for governments.

Several CBDC trackers.
cbdctracker.org/
atlanticcouncil.org/cbdctracker/
cbdctalks.com/

Reading the article on the link that OP provided, it didn't specifically state that the Pakistani government is legalizing cryptocurrency, so I agree with you that it must be the writers wish. Some people will publish articles with misleading information, and someone who is not vast in the topic will easily believe what is said.

I believe that in the near future, countries like Pakistan and China, that are still being skeptical about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general will have a change of mind. Bitcoin has become a store of value and it's adoption is increasing despite the unfriendly stance by some governments, I believe that in near future, they won't have much choice but to fully recognize it. The impact of Bitcoin is being felt in the US presidential campaigns, this is to show that eventually governments will adopt what the people want.

I can't speak for other cryptocurrencies, but with bitcoin all you have to do is just wait. Everybody with a right-thinking head will later come to realise that it's better to accept it rather than reject it, because when you compare bitcoin to every other currency out there, bitcoin is superior. With time they will all see it. The governments may not admit it openly of course and they will not make it legal tender, but it will not be illegal to spend or own bitcoin.
I belive that what most countries that are very strict with bitcoin need is time. That's if the country actually cares about its citizens. By the time the see how beneficial bitcoin is to the individuals, they'll lighten up towards bitcoin.

CBDC is on the minds of many countries nowadays, as far as I've heard about it.
If that's true, then, yeah, BTC would still be out of the picture to take a positive change in a stance in Pakistan and other countries too.

I would like to know the proposal because I haven't find it after making some research.

You're correct, Pakistani government is talking about CBDC, it has nothing to do with Bitcoin, it's just the writers wish for Pakistani government to allow Bitcoin. Of course Pakistan need to amendments their regulations because it doesn't make any sense if they reject their own currency.

The author of the article deliberately ignored the difference between digital currencies^[1] and cryptocurrencies. The text source says:


Digital_currency is not a crypto, which are a form of current money, but they are digital, completely centralized, and do not have to be on the blockchain.  So if the above quote is the only update, then nothing has changed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_currency

believe me that most countries that looks uninterested in keying into Bitcoin adoption are doing so just because of other countries that are still skeptical about Bitcoin.

Like my country for instance, the only reason why they seems to be against Bitcoin and crypto in general and hasn't made an official statement allowing it full and unsensored operation is due to the devaluation of her local currency that they tend to attribute to be caused by Bitcoin users that are carrying out p2p transactions and fixing individual rates by themselves. If the local currency gains value and some of the world powers like China, Russia and the United States keys into adopting Bitcoin as her reserve, my country will easily have a u turn on the way they look at Bitcoin. In terms of popularity and the Numbers of holders, at least 20% of citizens already know about the functionality of crypto and that's fair enough to start with.

Bitcoin blockchain is decentralized and most secure so that Bitcoin transactions are irreversible.

Bitcoin adoption has been increasing and has been better than ever. Fortunately and importantly, this adoption growth of Bitcoin is irreversible too. It causes unavoidable trend globally that nations have to join the trend if they don't want their countries are falling behind what they can not ban. They can make Bitcoin illegal in their countries but citizens there will continue to use bitcoin. So at the end, these governments are losers by wasting opportunities to gain more money in tax from their citizens.

So it's time for change, to legalize Bitcoin in their countries.

It's time to spread the Orange color (a traditional iconic color for Bitcoin) on the global map.
https://newhedge.io/terminal/bitcoin/legality-map

In 2023, Pakistan was very firm on their stance about crypto. They promoted the idea that using cryptocurrencies allows for illegal activities and therefore will not be encouraged and anyone to use cryptocurrencies will not be protected by the government. But now we see that they seem to be getting more lenient with crypto probably after seeing many countries adopting bitcoin and reaping rewards.

This just shows that even though a country has written off bitcoin, it doesn’t mean it can’t change. What other countries do you hope to reconsider their laws about bitcoin and crypto at large? China comes to mind first seeing how strong and largely popular was crypto there.