KARACHI: A high-level committee constituted by the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday recommended a complete ban on all cryptocurrencies in Pakistan.

The high court on October 20, 2021 constituted a committee headed by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) deputy governor to consider the trade/transactions of any kind of cryptocurrency in Pakistan.

The SHC constituted the committee in a petition filed by a citizen to regulate and legalise digital currency in Pakistan.

According to the committee findings, the only use of cryptocurrency in Pakistan seems to be speculative in nature where the people are being enticed to invest in such coins for the purpose of short-term capital gains.

The committee also noted that this may result in the flight of precious foreign exchange, as well as transfer of illicit funds from the country.

Last week, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) issued notice to a representative of Binance, a crypto exchange platform, to provide details of persons engaged in trading on behalf of Pakistanis.

The FIA authorities said that Pakistanis lost around Rs18 billion by fraudsters who were traded with mobile applications.

The SHC committee also recommended that exchanges like Binance, OctaFX, etc, should be banned for their unauthorised operations in the country and proportionate and dissuasive penalties be imposed by the federal government as some other countries have done.