World Liberty Financial and the Pakistan Crypto Council have established an agreement that seeks to promote the adoption of blockchain technology and decentralised finance in Pakistan. The signing occurred under the auspices of the Trump family-owned World Liberty Financial.

World Liberty Financial made its way to Pakistan for the very first time on Sunday. The Company in Islamabad is a cryptocurrency firm that is majority-owned by Donald J. Trump and his family. 

The Trump family owns 60 percent of this decentralised finance platform. World Liberty Financial signed a letter of intent with the Pakistan Crypto Council. Such a signing appears to show the willingness of Pakistan to adopt blockchain.

According to Dawn, Zachary Folkman, Chase Herro, and Zachary Witkoff represented the U.S. firm in a meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Army Chief General Asim Munir and other senior officials.

The agreement entails furthering efforts on blockchain and stablecoin usage and DeFi in Pakistan. A press release which has been cited by Dawn called it “a major step toward positioning Pakistan as a global leader in the digital finance revolution”. It claimed “Pakistan’s position as one of the fastest-growing crypto markets in the world.”

They signed it in front of Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb (on video conference), the Pakistan Crypto Council CEO Bilal Bin Saqib, the SECP Chairman, and the State Bank Governor.

Trump has been scrutinised as he draws attention to the ongoing collaboration at a time when all areas of his financial ventures have come under the scanner. According to a report by the New York Times, Trump mixes politics with business.

The New York Times has indicated that “Mr. Trump’s return to the White House has opened lucrative new pathways for him to cash in on his power, whether through his social media company or new overseas real estate deals.”

Additionally, it said, “But none of the Trump family’s other business endeavours pose conflicts of interest that compare to those that have emerged since the birth of World Liberty. The firm, largely owned by a Trump family corporate entity, has erased centuries-old presidential norms, eviscerating the boundary between private enterprise and government policy in a manner without precedent in modern American history.”

World Liberty started as a startup way back in 2024, approached little crypto startup firms with offers between $10-$30 million for their tokens. In return, smaller entities were giving up particular portions of their tokens.

Most of the funds were retained by World Liberty, as per The New York Times. Sometimes it charged premiums of up to 20 per cent, but these were kept confidential.

DT Marks DEFI LLC, related to the Trump family, owns 60 per cent of WLF Holdco LLC. It is the parent company of World Liberty. Along with that, it gets about 75 per cent of some token revenues.

The Chief Crypto Advocate, Donald Trump and his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are Web3 Ambassadors, while the youngest Barron Trump is dubbed the visionary of this platform in DeFi.

World Liberty and Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, support the Pakistan Crypto Council to make the country the crypto capital of South Asia, competing with the likes of the UAE.

As per Chainalysis data for 2024, Pakistan stands ninth in terms of crypto adoption. It has around 25 million users and $300 billion worth of transactions in cryptocurrency annually, with India topping the list. 

Speaking to Bloomberg about Pakistan's plans to liberalise regulations concerning crypto CEO Bin Saqib said, “We’ve seen this mistake before. India's putting 30 per cent tax on their crypto trades drastically reduced the exchange volume, our approach will be different,” he said.

Despite this, Indian officials remain wary. An advisor of the government told The Economic Times, “Middle East countries are already a bypass route for many Indian investors to trade using VPN and evade taxes. If new offshore and cost-effective exchanges start emerging in Pakistan, a lot of our trading activity can shift there. The larger worry for national security is Indian's financial data falling into the hands of Pakistani entities.”

In October 2024, World Liberty raised $300 million. Of this, twenty billion WLFI tokens were sold for $0.015 a piece. It now has plans to launch a stablecoin known as $1, which would be backed by U.S. Treasuries and such assets.

The other investment that World Liberty received was of $25 million from Dubai-based market maker DWF Labs. This is intended to augment the country's plans for expansion.

Earlier this month, the founders of the company also connected with Binance's Changpeng Zhao in Abu Dhabi. Zhao spent four months in prison after pleading guilty to an offence related to crypto fraud.

Some of the main investors in World Liberty include:

-Justin Sun, founder of Tron, who invested $75 million but was sued by the Biden administration, though the case was paused in February. 

-Arthur Hayes, founder of Ethena, was pardoned last month after being under home detention for six months. 

-A donation of $1 million to Trump's inauguration was made by Ondo Finance, which initially sold 130,000 coins to World Liberty. Peter Thiel, Trump's supporter and close working associate to Elon Musk has backed the firm.

In February, Eric Trump posted on X, "In my opinion, it's a great time to add $ETH." He later removed the follow-up line: "You can thank me later."

In March, Donald Trump announced a plan to create a U.S. Crypto Reserve made of Bitcoin and Ethereum. A week before World Liberty unveiled its stablecoin, the U.S. Senate introduced a bill to legalise stablecoins. This raised fresh concerns about links between Trump’s policy and business interests.