Crypto greases wheels of US-Pakistan diplomacy

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Bloomberg has a fascinating story on the person who may be behind Pakistan’s role as an intermediary between Iran and the US. Bilal Bin Saqib has close ties with World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency platform co-founded by Donald Trump, and is now a key adviser in the Pakistani government. Last month, Saqib posted a selfie from Mar-a-Lago. “I am not a trader, I’m a builder,” he told Bloomberg. “I am the artist, not the scientist.” Pakistan has cultivated increasingly warm relations with the US since last spring, when the country credited Trump for brokering a peace with India. Trump has since called Pakistan’s military chief a “great general”. Digital currencies are another factor in this friendship. Pakistan has 40m crypto users and a very high adoption rate, with residents seeking new investments in the face of rampant inflation. Shehbaz Sharif, the country’s prime minister, met with the CEO of World Liberty Financial in January.