World Moving Towards Digital Currency, No One Will Be Able To Stop It: Former FBR Chairman

Sumaira FH Published September 13, 2025 | 08:50 PM

KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th Sep, 2025) Former Chairman of Federal board of Revenue (FBR) Syed Shabbar Zaidi on Saturday said that cryptocurrency and digital economy were the major subjects of the future.

He said that the world was moving towards digital Currency and no one would be able to stop it.

While addressing a session on ‘Adopting Digital Economy and Cryptocurrency in Pakistan: Possibilities and Concerns’ organized by the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA), Shabbar Zaidi was of the view that Pakistan had an economy size of US $400 and the undocumented sector was 40 percent so actual size of economy would be approximately US $550.

He said Today we are discussing very technical topic. He said we are at the moment trying to document the economy.

The former FBR Chairman said that cryptocurrency was an alternative form of payment created using encryption algorithm.

He said that there was no concept of Islamic currency, in old times Dirham and Dinar were used as currency for trade or in exchange of something.

Zaidi said that the effective currency in the world at present was Dollar, which could lose its value in the days to come.

Pakistan and India were regulated economies and Pakistani currency was regulated by an institution but cryptocurrency was not issued by a nation state's institution.

He was of the view that there would be only cryptocurrency, which would not be of any single state nation by 2050.

He said that Bitcoin was not issued by an authority and it was not registered anywhere.

Zaidi said that the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) were not regulated economies for foreign exchange. Moreover, US bringing a Genius act to regulate cryptocurrency. He said, ‘Trump administration is very much interested in Genius act.’

Pakistan promulgated Virtual Assets Ordinance in July 2025 for cryptocurrency and digital currency.

He was of the view that around 0.9 million Pakistanis had Bitcoins.

Zaidi said that Pakistan would issue a coin under virtual assets ordinance, which would be a regulated coin, or an authentic coin, because it would be issued an authority or institution. He said that India had not accepted virtual currency so far.