Minister of State and Chairman Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA), Bilal Bin Saqib, addressed the inaugural Silk Road Finance & Technology Forum in Tashkent, outlining how artificial intelligence, tokenisation and digital assets are beginning to reshape financial institutions, capital markets and the global movement of value.
Speaking during the session “Regulating the Frontier: AI & Tokenization Spotlight,” alongside senior central bank leaders from Cambodia and Azerbaijan, Chairman PVARA argued that governments must build regulatory institutions capable of keeping pace with technologies developing far faster than traditional policy cycles.
He highlighted Pakistan’s transition from restricting virtual assets to establishing a dedicated regulatory framework, describing it as part of a broader effort to position the country for the next generation of digital finance.
From Prohibition to Regulation
Chairman PVARA noted that Pakistan’s 2018 restrictions on virtual assets did not eliminate market activity, but pushed significant activity toward offshore platforms and peer-to-peer channels, reducing regulatory visibility and leaving consumers with limited protection or recourse.
Pakistan has since enacted the Virtual Assets Act, 2026, establishing PVARA as the country’s dedicated virtual assets regulator.
PVARA has notified its licensing regulations and opened its licensing portal, creating a formal pathway for virtual asset service providers to operate within a regulated environment.
He also highlighted the State Bank of Pakistan’s Circular 10, which enables regulated banks to provide accounts to licensed virtual asset service providers, including segregated client-money accounts.
The transition demonstrates Pakistan’s broader approach to frontier technologies: bring innovation within the regulatory perimeter rather than allowing technological adoption to develop beyond the visibility of the state.
AI and the Next Generation of Financial Institutions
Chairman PVARA said artificial intelligence will increasingly change not only financial products, but the institutions responsible for supervising them.
As financial markets become faster, more digital and increasingly automated, regulators will need to use technology to strengthen supervision, compliance, risk detection and institutional decision-making.
He stressed that the next generation of regulators must themselves become more technology-enabled, capable of supervising markets operating at digital speed while maintaining consumer protection, financial integrity and systemic stability.
Tokenisation and the Future of Capital Markets
Chairman PVARA highlighted tokenisation as a potentially significant evolution in how financial assets are issued, distributed, settled and owned.
He outlined Pakistan’s interest in applying tokenisation to sovereign investment products, particularly to improve access for the Pakistani diaspora.
PVARA and the State Bank of Pakistan are studying a model for a digitally native sovereign note that could be issued on regulated blockchain infrastructure, settle on the same day and remain interoperable with Pakistan’s existing financial system.
Such a model could potentially reduce investment ticket sizes, shorten settlement times and increase transparency around securities ownership, while ensuring that coupons, trading and redemption remain connected to established financial infrastructure.
Chairman PVARA said the larger opportunity extends beyond sovereign debt to areas including tokenised real-world assets, payments, settlement, private capital and digitally native financial products.
Building the Agentic Economy
Chairman PVARA also emphasised that Pakistan’s young population should move from being consumers of emerging technologies to becoming builders of the companies and financial infrastructure created around them.
PVARA’s regulatory sandbox provides developers, founders and entrepreneurs with a supervised environment to test new products before entering the wider market, including solutions across tokenisation, payments, digital asset custody and compliance technology.
“Ultimately, I want the young population of Pakistan to look at AI and blockchain not simply as technologies to use, but as industries they can build companies around,” Bilal Bin Saqib said.
He added that the convergence of AI and blockchain could enable a new generation of highly automated and even agentic businesses, where small teams and individual entrepreneurs can build companies with capabilities that previously required much larger organisations.
Chairman PVARA concluded that Pakistan’s objective is not simply to regulate the technologies of today, but to create the regulatory clarity, digital infrastructure and institutional capacity required to compete in the financial economy of tomorrow.
