Bhutan government has amassed over $750 million worth of Bitcoin through its investment arm, Druk Holdings. Unlike other governments that obtain Bitcoin from asset seizures, Bhutan’s BTC comes from its own mining operations, which accelerated in 2023. This makes Bhutan the 3rd largest government holder of Bitcoin, now labeled on Arkham Intelligence’s platform. Arkham is the first platform to publicly identify these addresses, adding transparency to Bhutan’s crypto ventures.
Mining Facilities Across Bhutan
The Kingdom of Bhutan has built multiple mining facilities, including one at the former Education City project site. The data aligns with on-chain mining activity and satellite imagery. Forbes first reported about Bhutan’s bitcoin mining operations last year.
These developments now mean that Bhutan is 3rd largest nation state to hold bitcoin.
1. United States – $12.16B
2. United Kingdom – $3.67B
3. Bhutan – $782.46M
4. El Salvador – $351.75M
Some developing nations are quietly following Bhutan’s model of either mining bitcoin or directly purchasing bitcoin. El Salvador made Bitcoin a legal tender in 2021 and has since been buying bitcoin as part of a national strategic reverse. El Salvador president, Nayib Bukele has a publicly available Bitcoin tracking site where they make announcements whenever they purchase bitcoin. Currently, the portfolio stands at $360M or about 5800 bitcoins.
Kenya also seems keen to follow Bhutan’s strategy of mining bitcoin rather than purchasing it directly like El Salvador. Earlier in the year, In May, while the president of Kenya was on US tour, he made an announcement that the energy ministry was partnering with US Crypto mining firm, Marathon Digital Holdings (MDH) to expand their bitcoin mining operations to Kenya. So far no more details about this has been announced.
Meanwhile, according to Visual Capitalist, UAE leads in terms of the percentage of the population with crypto ownership. Over 30% of the UAE population, or about 3M, holds crypto, followed by Vietnam at 21% and the USA at 15% (53M).
Overall, it seems that governments are now adopting crypto mining activities as part of national treasury management. As developing nations grapple with increasing debt crisis and unstable local currencies, smart governments are increasingly embracing Bitcoin to solve budget deficits and as an avenue for economic prosperity. This is mostly possible, especially with smaller developing nations. Many proponents such as Michael Saylor have advocated for nations riddled in debt to adopt Bitcoin as a reserve asset rather than gold and foreign currencies. With the growth of bitcoin, these nations could use the gains to pay off debt and improve economically.
