After the Binance breach, a call for one body to stand up for Pakistan’s crypto investors

A proposal landed in Islamabad on Monday that speaks directly to millions of Pakistanis who hold digital assets. Hinza Asif, president of the Asia Web3 Alliance Japan (AWAJ), has called for a unified industry body to represent and protect the country’s crypto investors — and to deal with international exchanges on their behalf. The call comes in the wake of the multibillion-dollar Binance cybersecurity breach, which left the question of investor protection uncomfortably open.

“The question is who will represent and protect Pakistani investors if an international exchange faces a major cybersecurity or financial crisis?”
That is the question Asif put in her statement, and it is a fair one. Right now, she said, Pakistan has no organised way to bundle investor complaints together or to sit down with an international exchange when something goes wrong. A breach at a major exchange does not just mean money lost. It can mean unauthorised transactions, withdrawals frozen without warning, and confidence draining out of the whole market. What the Binance incident actually meant for Pakistani investors, she added, is still unclear — and needs independent verification before anyone claims otherwise.

How big is the market — and how solid are the numbers?
Pakistan ranked third in Chainalysis’ 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, which gives a sense of the scale. Estimates put crypto-linked accounts at around 40 million, with digital asset exposure somewhere between $10 billion and $20 billion. But Asif’s own caveat matters as much as the figures: those numbers have not been officially verified as representing individual investors. A market this large, in other words, is still running without a reliable headcount — and without a body to speak for it.

The regulator’s job is one thing; the industry’s voice is another
Asif welcomed the government’s regulatory moves, in particular the creation of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA). The regulator, she said, will handle regulatory matters within its legal mandate; an independent industry association would do something different — give fintech firms, blockchain businesses, technology professionals and investors a shared platform to raise concerns and engage with policymakers. She also proposed a national digital finance platform built on reliable market research, coordinated investor grievance mechanisms, cybersecurity awareness and formal partnerships with international industry organisations. And she made a broader point worth keeping: Pakistan’s digital finance potential does not stop at crypto trading. Blockchain applications, digital payments, fintech entrepreneurship and international investment are all part of the same story — which is exactly why, she argues, it needs an organised voice.