Over the past few months, Washington and Pakistan have entered an unexpected period of warming relations. On the surface, it appears to be routine diplomacy, another chapter in the cyclical dance between the United States and Pakistan.
Yet the underlying story is anything but routine. At the center of this renewed partnership is not a defense pact, a trade agreement, or a traditional aid package. Instead, it is a crypto deal — an alliance that ties the Trump family’s financial ambitions with Pakistan’s military-linked funds, while bringing into the fold Binance, a crypto behemoth long accused of enabling terror financing.
The threads of this arrangement, revealed in a detailed exposé by DisInfo Lab, weave together an unlikely but combustible set of actors: Donald Trump’s family and their venture World Liberty Financial, Pakistan’s newly established Crypto Council led by a rising entrepreneur named Bilal bin Saqib, and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, a man who only months ago was sentenced to prison for anti-money laundering failures that helped extremist groups raise funds.
The outcome is what analysts are beginning to describe as crypto diplomacy — a parallel track of financial statecraft where unregulated digital assets are used not just for profit, but as instruments of influence, leverage, and potentially destabilization. The images, corporate filings, and news clippings collected over the last few months present a damning picture of how this alliance took shape and what it could mean for global security.
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Bilal bin Saqib: The Double Role
The story begins with Bilal bin Saqib, a British-Pakistani entrepreneur who within months has become one of the most influential names in South Asia’s digital finance world. In April 2025, Bilal was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Pakistan Crypto Council (PCC), a government-backed body created to spearhead Pakistan’s blockchain and digital asset strategy. Within weeks, he was also designated Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Blockchain, placing him at the top of Islamabad’s policy apparatus on crypto regulation.
But just before these appointments, Bilal quietly accepted another role: advisor to World Liberty Financial (WLF), a crypto enterprise backed by the Trump family. WLF is no ordinary company. Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Jared Kushner collectively control a forty percent stake, and Donald Trump himself is listed as “co-founder emeritus.”
The timing was extraordinary. On April 15, WLF announced Bilal as one of its key advisors. Eleven days later, on April 26, WLF signed a formal agreement with the Pakistan Crypto Council. By May, Bilal was simultaneously representing Islamabad’s crypto ambitions and advising the Trump family’s private financial venture. The conflict of interest was glaring, but in Pakistan’s opaque political culture, it was celebrated as innovation.
The photographs posted by Bilal on May 23, showing him shaking hands with Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, Field Marshal Asim Munir, tell their own story. Smiling for the camera, the Army Chief and the crypto executive embodied the military establishment’s endorsement of a project that had until then been dismissed as speculative finance. The Pakistan Army’s involvement elevated the pact from business arrangement to national strategy.
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Trump’s Crypto Venture Goes Global
On the same day that Bilal’s handshake photos appeared on social media, the American financial press confirmed the tie-up. A report in The Street headlined “Trump-backed project partners with Pakistan govt” announced that World Liberty Financial had partnered with the Pakistan Crypto Council to “promote the burgeoning industry.” The article underscored that this was not merely a bilateral economic initiative but a project personally associated with Donald Trump and his family.
For Trump, this was a familiar formula. Over decades, his business empire blurred the lines between private ventures and political influence, leveraging one to strengthen the other. But this time, the stakes are higher. Crypto assets, unlike real estate, can flow across borders instantaneously and invisibly. By embedding his family venture into Pakistan’s military-backed crypto infrastructure, Trump effectively linked American political influence with a parallel financial system in South Asia.
Within weeks, the results were visible. Army Chief Asim Munir traveled to Washington twice in two months. A series of bilateral agreements were signed across sectors. In a symbolic gesture dripping with irony, Pakistan even nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Behind the photo-ops and diplomatic statements was a financial pact that had rewritten the terms of U.S.–Pakistan engagement.
The Binance Connection
If the Trump link gave the alliance legitimacy in Washington, the involvement of Binance gave it the infrastructure to move money at scale. Binance is the world’s largest crypto exchange, but also one of the most controversial. In November 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice and Treasury announced that Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), had pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering and failing to stop terrorist financing. The penalties included a record-breaking $4.3 billion fine and a prison sentence for Zhao.
Despite this, by mid-2025 Zhao resurfaced as Strategic Advisor to the Pakistan Crypto Council, sitting alongside Bilal bin Saqib. The DisInfo Lab graphic tracing Binance’s global infractions makes clear what this means: in France, Binance is accused of money laundering and terror finance. In Canada, it was fined six million Canadian dollars for failing financial transparency laws. In India, the Financial Intelligence Unit imposed a penalty of 188 million rupees for money laundering violations linked to terrorism risks. The same exchange was caught funneling funds to Hamas, al-Qaeda, and ISIS.
By bringing Zhao into the PCC, Pakistan positioned a convicted crypto mogul at the heart of its national financial strategy. It also created the perfect nexus: Trump’s political family enterprise for cover, Pakistan’s military for protection, and Binance’s infrastructure for movement of funds.
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Shell Companies and Military Slush Funds
The credibility of Bilal bin Saqib’s business record collapses under scrutiny. The DisInfo Lab’s corporate mapping shows a sprawling network of companies linked to him — many registered at the same address, with no functioning websites, no visible operations, and overlapping directors. From London Mobile Company to Tayaba International, the entities exhibit the hallmarks of shell companies: vehicles for obscuring ownership and moving money without transparency.
The trail leads to Bilal’s sister, Minahil, who owns seventy-five percent of Tayaba UK, a firm partnered with the Al Mustafa Trust (AMT). At first glance, AMT presents itself as a charitable organization. But its Board of Management list reveals a who’s who of retired Pakistani generals, air marshals, and brigadiers. From Lt Gen Muhammad Mustafa Khan to Brig Masood Hasan, the trustees are almost exclusively former military officials.
This is classic Milbus — Pakistan’s informal military-business complex. For decades, retired officers have used charitable foundations and welfare trusts to accumulate assets, generate income, and finance activities outside the official defense budget. In this case, crypto provides a new channel: untraceable, global, and shielded from scrutiny.
The AMT trustee list, published online and corroborated through corporate filings, shows how deep the overlap runs. A charity ostensibly meant to serve the poor is in reality a military-controlled financial vehicle. By aligning Tayaba with AMT and then folding the PCC into the Trump–Binance partnership, Bilal bin Saqib placed Pakistan’s military elite at the core of a crypto-financial web.
A Dangerous Experiment
The question is not whether Pakistan has the right to pursue crypto innovation. The question is whether this innovation is being used as a cover for money laundering, terror financing, and military enrichment. DisInfo Lab’s conclusion is blunt: the Pakistan–WLF–Binance alliance has “opened avenues for money laundering and is even giving impetus to terror-funding.”
The risks are manifold. For the United States, it undermines Washington’s credibility on anti-money laundering enforcement. How can American regulators fine Binance billions for terror financing one year, only to allow the Trump family to partner with the same exchange through Pakistan the next? For India, the risks are existential. A Pakistan empowered with parallel financial channels insulated from scrutiny could fund proxy groups with renewed vigor, bypassing FATF monitoring and traditional banking restrictions. For the global system, the precedent is terrifying: political dynasties, military elites, and convicted crypto moguls forming alliances that operate beyond the reach of regulators.
The images tell the story better than any statement. Bilal bin Saqib smiling alongside the Army Chief in Rawalpindi, the Trump family’s crypto venture celebrated in American financial media, the DisInfo Lab graphics linking Binance to terror groups, and the Al Mustafa Trust board populated by retired generals — together they reveal a shadow alliance that stretches from Washington to Islamabad to Beijing.
Crypto diplomacy, as it is being practiced today, is not about innovation or inclusion. It is about creating financial channels that are shielded from oversight, insulated by political influence, and directed by actors with histories of corruption and extremism. The convergence of Trump’s private family venture, Pakistan’s military funds, and Binance’s infrastructure is not merely controversial. It is dangerous.
The world must decide whether to treat this as just another geopolitical curiosity or to recognize it for what it is: the birth of a shadow financial order where money, politics, and militancy blend into one. If left unchecked, the crypto pact of 2025 may not only redefine U.S.–Pakistan relations but may also become the template for how financial power is wielded in the twenty-first century — not in boardrooms or central banks, but in the shadows where diplomacy, military ambition, and illicit finance meet.