Pakistan’s Crypto Push Just Ran Into a Religious Ruling Against USDT

By Isaac • July 12, 2026 1:55 pm •

Pakistan spent the past year building a legal lane for crypto. A new religious ruling now questions whether some of the assets inside that lane qualify as wealth at all.

Mufti Taqi Usmani and five other scholars signed a fatwa saying purchases made with cryptocurrency were impermissible under their interpretation of Islamic law. The ruling reached stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT, the third-largest crypto asset by market value.

Pakistan’s virtual-assets regulator is answering with dialogue instead of retreat.

The collision creates two separate tests for the country’s crypto policy. A platform can satisfy the government and still face a serious religious objection from the people it hopes to serve.

Dawn reports that the fatwa was dated