LAS VEGAS, Nevada — The government of Pakistan has plans to establish a strategic bitcoin BTC reserve and support bitcoin mining, the country’s Minister of State for Blockchain and Crypto Bilal Bin Saqib announced at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

Bin Saqib said that Pakistan’s plans for a strategic bitcoin reserve were inspired by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration’s own nascent plan for a strategic bitcoin reserve in the U.S., which will — at least at first — be filled with the U.S. government’s holdings from criminal and civil forfeitures, estimated to sit at around 200,000 bitcoins. He also said that the government of Pakistan was following the U.S.’s push for stablecoin legislation, the GENIUS Act, “very carefully.”

Like the bitcoins earmarked for the U.S. strategic reserve, Bin Saquib said that the Pakistani government would not sell its bitcoins.

“This wallet, the national bitcoin wallet, is not for speculation or hype. We will be holding these bitcoins and we will never, ever sell them,” Bin Saqib said.

In addition to setting up a strategic reserve, Bin Saqiib announced that the government of Pakistan has earmarked 2,000 megawatts of electricity for bitcoin mining and AI data centers.“We want to welcome all miners to come to Pakistan, all the infrastructure players to come to Pakistan and build with us,” Bin Saqib said.

Bin Saqib said that the establishment of a bitcoin strategic reserve in Pakistan would be “just the beginning” of the country’s embrace of the crypto industry.

“We have over 100 million unbanked people. They lack tools for saving, for investment, and we want to change that. We want them to break their economic classes. And I really believe that crypto and blockchain can help us take that quantum leap,” Bin Saqib said. “We want to tokenize our illiquid assets. We want to do digital IDs … So Pakistan is looking for allies. Pakistan is looking for access, because Pakistan wants to build.”

A deal that would bring xAI’s Grok to Telegram has apparently not been signed, despite prior reporting, putting sell pressure on TON’s recent rally.

«No deal has been signed,» Musk posted late Wednesday in response to the Telegram founder’s announcement.

TON, a token associated with Telegram, dropped from $3.60 to $3.40 in the moments after the tweet. The token had been on a rally in the hours after the announcement, previously up 14% on-day, according to CoinDesk market data.

More to come…

Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) rose roughly 4% in post-trading hours after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenue on Wednesday.

The AI powerhouse posted a 69% increase in revenue in the first quarter, compared to a year ago, with its data center business growing 73% year-over-year. Net income came in at $18.8 billion, up 26% from a year earlier.

The after-hours move pushed NVDA shares to a modest year-to-date gain and about a 20% year-over-year advance.

AI crypto tokens, including Bittensor TAO, NEAR Protocol NEAR and Internet Computer (CIP), moved slightly higher after Nvidia’s earnings beat, although remained sizably lower for the day. Nevertheless, it was ongoing AI demand which was a key driver in the 73% growth in the company data center business.

Turning to the outlook amid recent global trade uncertainties, Nvidia said it expects second-quarter revenue to come in below market estimates as a result of tariff-related restrictions between the U.S. and China.