In the high-stakes arena of global diplomacy, motives are rarely what they seem on the surface. This rings especially true in the case of U.S. President Donald Trump’s sudden pivot from a hands-off approach to playing self-anointed mediator between India and Pakistan. The move, cloaked under the veil of peacekeeping and regional stability, coincides intriguingly with a crypto venture involving Trump’s family and the Pakistani government — raising critical questions about where diplomacy ends and business begins.
At the heart of this geopolitical drama lies a newly-formed cryptocurrency initiative in Pakistan. The Pakistan Crypto Council (PCC), a hastily established body, recently inked a high-profile agreement with World Liberty Financial (WLF) — a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform in which President Trump and his close affiliates hold a 60% stake. The ink was barely dry on this strategic partnership before Trump appeared to show an unusual interest in resolving one of South Asia’s most volatile conflicts.
The implications of this deal run far deeper than a simple memorandum of understanding on blockchain innovation. The PCC, less than a month old at the time of the agreement, brought in Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) as an adviser. That move alone signaled Islamabad’s serious intent to transform Pakistan into South Asia’s crypto capital. But more eye-opening was the red-carpet welcome given to WLF’s delegation, which included Zachary Witkoff, the son of Trump’s long-time associate and real estate billionaire Steve Witkoff. The delegation wasn’t just meeting civilian bureaucrats — they were granted audiences with the highest echelons of Pakistan’s civil and military leadership, including Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief General Asim Munir.
What makes this particularly disturbing is that days after this high-powered meeting, the brutal Pahalgam attack in India occurred — a massacre where tourists were reportedly segregated and killed based on their religious identity. India, reeling from the loss and visibly outraged, saw the usual diplomatic tensions spike with Pakistan. And right when the world expected Trump to maintain his past “let them sort it out” stance, the U.S. President suddenly positioned himself as a peacemaker.
The timing is not just suspicious — it demands investigation.
President Trump’s crypto interests in Pakistan are not limited to a few business meetings. The WLF-PCC partnership outlines expansive cooperation, ranging from regulatory sandbox experiments and DeFi adoption to tokenising real-world assets like real estate and expanding stablecoin infrastructure for trade and remittances. The stakes are massive, with Pakistan now being projected as one of the fastest-growing crypto economies — boasting $300 billion in annual crypto transactions and 25 million active users, according to their finance ministry.
The nation’s demographic advantage — with over 64% of its population under the age of 30 — presents a lucrative opportunity for any investor betting on blockchain’s future. But it’s not just about technology or economics. It’s also about leverage. With such high business stakes tied to political goodwill and regulatory favor, could Trump’s diplomatic posturing merely be a strategy to protect or promote his financial interests in the region?
Trump’s sons — Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., along with son-in-law Jared Kushner — have made headlines for globe-trotting in search of deals that appear to benefit from the Trump family’s political connections. These allegations have dogged the family through Trump’s first presidential term and now into his second, with critics accusing them of using proximity to power to cut high-stakes, high-reward deals. In this light, the WLF venture looks less like an innovative leap and more like another chapter in the family’s pattern of blending political influence with business ambitions.
One must also examine Zachary Witkoff’s role. A regular at Mar-a-Lago and a known Trump confidant, Witkoff has emerged as a behind-the-scenes fixer — a person who, during Trump’s first term, helped broker the Abraham Accords between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain. President Trump has now reportedly assigned him the even more ambitious task of engineering a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. So why not throw South Asia into his growing portfolio of peace deals?
But peace, when tied to profit, becomes a paradox. If the purpose of mediation is not merely to avoid conflict but to ensure the profitability of a crypto venture, then what are we looking at? A transactional diplomacy? A quid pro quo with lives hanging in the balance?
There is no denying that Pakistan has strategically latched onto crypto as a means to revamp its ailing economy. For a country struggling with international debt, sanctions, and IMF pressure, the decentralized, lightly regulated world of crypto presents a golden escape hatch. WLF, in turn, gets the benefit of being a foundational partner in shaping an emerging crypto superpower. That’s not just good business — it’s potentially a political tool.
Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, speaking via video during the signing, noted that the partnership opened “new doors for investment, innovation, and global leadership in the blockchain economy.” PCC CEO Bilal Bin Saqib called it a “strategic move to empower our young population.” The praise was effusive, but the backdrop — a nation grappling with terrorism allegations, deep economic instability, and military overreach — makes such optimism seem overly sanitized.
To India, this emerging triangle of Trump-Pakistan-Crypto must be viewed with caution. The coincidence of the WLF deal and the sudden Trump-led mediation effort following the Pahalgam killings cannot be dismissed as benign diplomacy. If the U.S. President’s motivations are tied to ensuring the success of a venture where his family owns a controlling stake, then this is not a peace plan. It’s a business strategy cloaked in the language of statesmanship.
India has historically resisted third-party mediation in its conflict with Pakistan — especially from power brokers who may have vested commercial interests with the very state that is often accused of harboring terror elements. The idea that a global financial venture, especially one rooted in unregulated cryptocurrency, could shape high-level foreign policy decisions is not just uncomfortable. It’s dangerous.
The real question before us is this:
Is President Donald Trump’s sudden interest in South Asian peacekeeping merely a smokescreen for securing his family’s crypto empire in Pakistan?
The signs are all there. The actors are all familiar. And the stakes — both financial and political — are higher than ever.
As we inch closer to a world where decentralised finance begins to influence centralised geopolitics, we must ask not just who profits, but at what cost. If peace becomes a currency, then war is just another market condition. And in such a world, morality and national interest may find themselves dangerously undervalued.
