Pakistan’s rise to third place in the global crypto adoption league speaks less to speculative froth than to a deeper shift in how its 240 million citizens might soon save, invest and move money.
As one of the world’s highest intensity retail crypto markets, that momentum matters because only when crypto participation becomes part of everyday life, in remittances, savings or payments, does adoption endure.
On-chain is the new online. The next phase of financial services involves recording assets on public ledgers rather than on paper, and tokenisation will provide the infrastructure to enable that transition.
The recent move to explore tokenising up to $2 billion in sovereign assets, including bonds and T-bills, points toward blockchain-based financial infrastructure that can support faster issuance and wider distribution. It also signals a willingness to modernise the market setup at a time when many young Pakistanis already treat mobile apps as their default financial interface.
Remittances remain one of Pakistan’s most powerful financial lifelines, and the cost of moving money still consumes too much household value. The World Bank highlights a global average remittance cost of 6.49 per cent, a figure that translates into meaningful leakage when applied to large national inflows.
Tokenisation creates a new possibility: converting inbound value into investable, trackable holdings quickly and in small units. Remittance recipients familiar with app-based finance can shift from ‘receive and spend’ to ‘receive, hold and earn’ through tokenised instruments that resemble digital savings products. Over time, this strengthens household balance sheets and supports a more resilient consumer economy.
The private sector’s role is execution quality, as product design already shapes adoption, helping Pakistan’s digital finance story attract regional attention. Pakistan’s recent financial signals remain clear: household purchasing power is fragile and cross-border flows are immense. Remittances reached $38.3 billion in FY2025, keeping many afloat.
In that environment, households often seek ways to preserve value and generate returns through digital financial tools. Tokenisation expands the toolkit by moving familiar instruments, such as short-dated government paper, onto always-on, mobile-native platforms.
Tokenised issuance also matters for a sovereign that faces heavy financing needs, a narrow pool of foreign bond buyers and high yields demanded by international investors. A well-designed tokenised market can widen the investor funnel and support more consistent secondary trading, which is one reason policymakers and market participants are watching the experiment closely.
MEXC Research reports that the CIS and Southeast Asia account for 81 per cent of global privacy-coin trading volume, which the company presents as evidence that emerging markets drive wallet-based transfers and cross-border activity. Where users already move value quickly through wallets, demand grows for instruments that feel familiar in a digital format, with clear terms and a predictable payoff profile.
Tokenised bonds matter because they translate a complex market into a more usable format. Tokenisation supports fractional ownership, faster settlement, and a cleaner, auditable record of ownership and transfers, concepts widely discussed in Pakistan’s mainstream financial commentary on tokenisation. These advantages are meaningful to a retail buyer who wants smaller denominations, transparent terms and the ability to hold assets without the traditional brokerage friction.
The design challenge is accessibility without confusion. Tokenised sovereign instruments still need clear disclosure of yield, maturity, price risk and settlement rules, especially if sold in small denominations to first-time investors. Market makers and issuance partners also matter because fractional access only works if there is dependable liquidity and orderly price formation. If those elements land, tokenised bills can resemble a modern savings product while still behaving like a regulated fixed-income instrument.
Tokenisation succeeds when trust becomes measurable. Retail users participate more confidently when platforms publish verifiable reserve practices and undergo independent security validation.
This is where exchange standards matter, especially in retail-heavy markets. MEXC has positioned proof-of-reserves as a recurring transparency practice, including independent auditing support and Merkle Tree verification methods that allow users to validate inclusion in reserves. These practices align with the broader industry direction toward verifiable backing and user-verifiable accounting. That approach also sets expectations for any platform that wants to support tokenised real-world assets at scale, because users tend to reward transparency when volatility hits.
Onboarding design also shapes outcomes. A ‘first trade protection’ approach can reduce the fear and friction that first-time users face, with limited loss-coverage mechanics framed as learning support. That emphasis matches what retail markets consistently reward: usability, clarity and guardrails that reduce costly mistakes. Over time, better onboarding can shift behaviour from impulse-driven trading to repeatable saving and risk-management habits.
Optimism around Pakistan’s crypto trajectory has become increasingly explicit. Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has argued that Pakistan could become a major crypto leader within about five years if momentum continues, citing the country’s young, tech-forward population. That forecast resonates because leadership in this cycle will come from practical deployment: tools that improve daily financial outcomes, expand access to legitimate yield, and support faster movement of value.
Tokenisation’s promise extends well beyond finance. Pakistan’s HEC plans to store degrees on a blockchain, ending paper attestation and enabling instant, tamper-proof verification. Healthcare could adopt similar systems, allowing authorised doctors secure access to patient histories while protecting privacy. Real estate may also change through blockchain-based fractional ownership, letting people buy small property shares, boosting liquidity and widening participation in a sector long marked by high costs and fraud.
Together, these shifts suggest that on-chain finance is only a start: a tokenised future could enhance government efficiency, transparency and inclusion across everyday life and public services.
The writer is the chief operating officer of MEXC.
