Pakistan put Bitcoin at the centre of its digital-asset ambitions in May 2025.
On May 25, the government announced that 2,000 megawatts of surplus electricity would be allocated for Bitcoin mining and artificial-intelligence data centres. Four days later, Bilal Bin Saqib announced plans for a government-led strategic Bitcoin reserve at Bitcoin Conference 2025 in Las Vegas. In June, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and Saqib discussed Bitcoin as a sovereign reserve asset with Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor.
More than a year later, parts of that agenda have moved into law.
Pakistan now has legislation covering virtual-asset mining and giving the federal government a legal route to establish a Strategic Digital Wallet Company capable of managing virtual assets for strategic reserve objectives.
What remains harder to establish from the public record is whether that infrastructure has produced an operational Bitcoin reserve, how much Bitcoin is held by the government, and how much of the announced 2,000 MW mining allocation has actually entered operation.
The distinction matters because Pakistan’s Bitcoin policy has changed considerably since the announcements of 2025.
The 2,000 MW mining announcement came first
On May 25, 2025, the government announced that 2,000 MW of electricity would be allocated for Bitcoin mining and AI data centres.
Radio Pakistan, citing the Finance Division, described the initiative as part of a wider effort to monetize surplus electricity, attract foreign direct investment, create high-technology jobs and generate foreign exchange.
Bilal Bin Saqib, then chief executive of the Pakistan Crypto Council, also connected the electricity initiative directly with sovereign Bitcoin accumulation.
He said Bitcoin mining could generate foreign exchange in U.S. dollars and that Pakistan could accumulate Bitcoin directly into a national wallet.
The announcement linked the mining programme with something larger than attracting private mining operators. It presented mining as one possible way for Pakistan to build digital-asset holdings.
The public statement did not identify specific mining sites, operators, power-purchase agreements or deployment dates. It also did not say how much of the 2,000 MW allocation would ultimately be used for Bitcoin mining rather than AI infrastructure.
Four days later came the Bitcoin reserve announcement
On May 29, Bilal Bin Saqib announced what the government described as Pakistan’s first government-led strategic Bitcoin reserve during Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas.
The same announcement repeated the 2,000 MW electricity allocation for Bitcoin mining and AI data centres.
Contemporaneous reporting from the event also provided an important detail about how the reserve was intended to begin.
Saqib described the national wallet as holding digital assets already in state custody rather than being established through a new government Bitcoin purchasing programme. He said the holdings were intended to be retained rather than sold.
That narrows one of the questions surrounding the original announcement.
The proposed reserve was not presented simply as a plan for the government to enter the market and buy Bitcoin with public funds.
But significant details were still missing.
No reserve balance was disclosed. There was no public wallet address, custody arrangement, accounting treatment or breakdown showing which digital assets were already held by the state and how they would be transferred into the reserve structure.
The announcement established an intention to hold state-controlled digital assets as a strategic reserve. It did not establish how much Bitcoin Pakistan actually controlled.
The reserve was announced before Pakistan had a legal framework
The timing of the announcement exposed a significant contradiction inside Pakistan’s crypto policy.
On May 29, the same day the strategic Bitcoin reserve was being promoted internationally, Finance Secretary Imdadullah Bosal told the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance that Pakistan’s existing restrictions on cryptocurrency remained in place.
He said proper regulations were still required.
The following day, the government itself announced that the Pakistan Crypto Council would meet to work on the regulatory and legal framework for digital and virtual assets, including groundwork for a dedicated virtual-assets regulator.
At the time, Pakistan therefore had an internationally announced Bitcoin strategy while the domestic legal system for virtual assets was still being constructed.
That tension is important when looking back at the reserve today.
The 2025 announcement preceded the regulatory foundation that would later make parts of the strategy legally possible.
The position changed materially in 2026.
Pakistan subsequently enacted the Virtual Assets Act, established the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority and created a statutory framework covering virtual-asset services, mining and government digital-asset infrastructure.
Michael Saylor discussed the reserve strategy with Pakistani officials
Pakistan’s Bitcoin policy received another high-profile endorsement on June 15, 2025.
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and Bilal Bin Saqib held a virtual meeting with Michael Saylor, executive chairman of Strategy and one of the world’s largest corporate advocates of Bitcoin.
According to the government’s official account, the discussion focused on Bitcoin as a sovereign reserve asset, monetary resilience and Pakistan’s longer-term digital economic strategy.
Saylor welcomed the opportunity to advise and support ongoing developments.
That wording is worth preserving carefully.
The official record reviewed by Chain Pakistan shows that Pakistani officials discussed reserve strategy with Saylor and that he expressed willingness to provide advice and support.
It does not show that this resulted in a formal government appointment.
His involvement should therefore be described as advisory engagement rather than a confirmed government position.
The legal framework changed substantially in 2026
The strongest evidence that the Bitcoin agenda did not simply disappear is found in the Virtual Assets Act, 2026.
Section 37 gives PVARA explicit authority over virtual-asset mining.
The regulator may, in consultation with other government entities, issue regulations, standards and guidelines for mining activity.
The law also distinguishes between mining for an operator’s own account and mining services involving customer assets or funds.
Pure mining does not by itself constitute a Virtual Asset Service requiring a licence.
Mining operations involving customer assets or funds, however, are treated as Virtual Asset Services and fall within the licensing framework.
PVARA can also introduce registration or declaration requirements for larger mining operators based on thresholds such as scale, electricity consumption or hash rate.
Mining therefore has a formal statutory place in Pakistan’s virtual-asset framework that did not exist when the 2,000 MW programme was announced.
That legal recognition is significant.
It is not, however, evidence that the full electricity allocation has been deployed.
The law also created a route for a government digital-asset wallet
Section 38 of the Act is directly relevant to the strategic reserve.
It allows the federal government to establish or designate a wholly owned company called the Strategic Digital Wallet Company.
Under the Act, that company can provide custody and administration services and operate wallet infrastructure enabling the Government of Pakistan and designated public institutions to manage, transfer and record virtual assets in furtherance of strategic reserve objectives.
The company is intended to serve the government and designated public bodies rather than private customers.
This is one of the clearest developments since the 2025 Bitcoin reserve announcement.
Pakistan now has legislation capable of supporting sovereign custody and administration of virtual assets.
But the law itself does not disclose whether the government has transferred Bitcoin into that structure.
It does not provide a reserve balance, wallet address, valuation, acquisition history or custody details.
The legal infrastructure exists.
Evidence of the reserve’s current operating size remains limited.
The 2,000 MW mining plan is harder to trace
The electricity initiative presents a similar distinction between policy and implementation.
The original May 25 announcement was explicit: 2,000 MW had been allocated in the first phase for Bitcoin mining and AI data centres.
Four days later, Pakistan also announced what Radio Pakistan described as its first blockchain-based high-performance computing licence, with expected annual foreign-exchange earnings of between $1.5 million and $2 million.
That announcement demonstrated that individual projects were moving forward.
It did not establish that the wider 2,000 MW allocation had been deployed.
By 2026, mining had been incorporated into Pakistan’s formal virtual-asset framework. PVARA’s licensing structure recognizes mining-related services, while the Act gives the regulator authority over larger mining operations.
What Chain Pakistan has not found in the current official record is a public accounting showing how much of the announced 2,000 MW has been contracted, energized or assigned to operating Bitcoin-mining facilities.
There is also no official public disclosure reviewed for this article showing how much Bitcoin has been produced through the programme or transferred into a government-controlled reserve.
That does not establish that no mining activity is taking place.
It means the implementation of the original 2,000 MW commitment is not publicly documented at the scale or level of detail suggested by the 2025 announcement.
Pakistan’s digital-asset agenda has become broader than Bitcoin
Government policy has also moved beyond the Bitcoin-heavy messaging of 2025.
In 2026, official discussions increasingly focused on regulated virtual-asset businesses, stablecoins, tokenization, programmable payments and blockchain-based financial infrastructure.
In May, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb met PVARA Chairman Bilal Bin Saqib and government debt officials to discuss tokenizing sovereign debt instruments and Naya Pakistan Certificates.
The discussion included blockchain-based issuance and settlement infrastructure.
More recent government and PVARA messaging has also referred to tokenized markets, digitally native financial instruments and programmable payments.
That does not show that the Bitcoin reserve has been abandoned.
It shows that Bitcoin has become one part of a wider digital-asset strategy.
The policy agenda now extends beyond reserve accumulation and mining into regulation, payments, tokenization and institutional financial infrastructure.
What can be confirmed today
The official record supports several conclusions.
Pakistan announced a government-led strategic Bitcoin reserve in May 2025.
It also announced 2,000 MW of surplus electricity for Bitcoin mining and AI data centres.
The reserve announcement was described as involving digital assets already in state custody rather than a new government Bitcoin purchasing programme, although the amount and composition of those holdings were not disclosed.
The announcement came before Pakistan had a complete legal framework for virtual assets. On the same day, the Finance Secretary was still telling Parliament that existing cryptocurrency restrictions remained in place and that regulation was needed.
Pakistan subsequently consulted Michael Saylor on Bitcoin reserve strategy, but the public official record reviewed by Chain Pakistan does not show that this led to a formal government appointment.
In 2026, Parliament created a legal framework that explicitly covers virtual-asset mining and allows a government-owned Strategic Digital Wallet Company to manage virtual assets in support of strategic reserve objectives.
Those are concrete developments.
What remains missing from the public record is also important.
Chain Pakistan has not found an official current disclosure specifying the government’s Bitcoin balance, the wallet or custody structure holding those assets, the valuation of the reserve, or the amount of Bitcoin generated through government-backed mining.
Nor does the current official material reviewed for this article provide a detailed accounting of how much of the 2,000 MW mining and AI allocation is operating.
Pakistan’s Bitcoin strategy has therefore moved beyond the conference stage in one important respect: parts of the legal and institutional architecture envisioned in 2025 now exist.
Whether that architecture has produced an operational strategic Bitcoin reserve at meaningful scale, or a Bitcoin-mining programme operating at the scale announced in 2025, remains unclear from the public record.
Primary Sources
- Radio Pakistan — Govt allocates surplus electricity for Bitcoin mining, May 25, 2025
- Radio Pakistan — SAPM on Crypto announces first govt-led strategic Bitcoin reserve, May 29, 2025
- Radio Pakistan — 1st blockchain-based high-performance computing license issued, May 29, 2025
- Radio Pakistan — Crypto Council to deliberate regulatory future of digital currency, May 30, 2025
- Radio Pakistan — Finance Minister vows to take lead in digital assets, innovation, June 15, 2025
- Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority — Virtual Assets Act, 2026, Sections 37 and 38
- Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority — Licensing framework and mining-related Virtual Asset Services
- Government of Pakistan / Press Information Department — official digital-asset and tokenization policy statements, 2026
Additional Reporting Reviewed
- Dawn — National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance coverage, May 29–30, 2025
- Contemporaneous reporting from Bitcoin 2025 concerning the announced national wallet and state-controlled digital assets
