The Kingdom of Bhutan recently announced that it will use its sovereign digital asset reserves of up to 10,000 Bitcoins to provide long-term financial support for the Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) in the south, with a total scale of approximately US$1 billion based on current market prices. This plan, called the "Bitcoin Development Pledge", is regarded as one of the largest initiatives in the world for sovereign countries to support infrastructure construction with digital assets.
In his National Day message, King Jigme Kesar Namgyel Wangchuk of Bhutan said that it must be ensured that every citizen of Bhutan is a "custodian, stakeholder and beneficiary" of the GMC, emphasizing that this commitment is "dedicated to the people, youth and the country." As a core project of Bhutan to create an economic hub in the south, GMC is positioned as a new city that integrates the concepts of economic development and spiritual practice.
According to the project description, this batch of Bitcoins will be used exclusively for the development of GMC and will be mainly used for reserve entrustment and revenue management. Bhutan has made it clear that it has no intention to sell these Bitcoins. GMC board member Jigdrel Singay told the media that related assets will be used through mortgages, income strategies under risk management, and long-term holdings. The goal is to bring sustainable growth to GMC while ensuring capital security.
The Bhutanese government emphasized that it will manage this part of Bitcoin reserves based on the principles of long-term value, strict supervision and transparent governance. Through the new land policy, the GMC attempts to share development dividends with residents across the country: the project is likened to a company, and the land holders are regarded as shareholders. Since most of the land is state-owned assets, people in all Dzongkhags (administrative regions) have the opportunity to benefit from it.
This move continues Bhutan’s systematic layout of blockchain and digital assets in recent years, and is also regarded as the latest step in its use of sovereign reserves to enhance national resilience and employment. Public data points out that Bhutan currently holds 5,984 Bitcoins, worth more than $522 million at the latest price, ranking seventh among countries in the world that hold sovereign Bitcoins.
Over the past few years, Bhutan has participated in Bitcoin mining through hydropower resources and gradually diversified its sovereign assets into a variety of digital assets. This year, GMC designated Bitcoin, Ethereum and BNB as strategic reserve assets, and reached a cooperation with Binance Pay in May this year to support encrypted payments in the travel ecosystem. Meanwhile, Bhutan’s National Digital Identity (NDI) platform has been integrated with the Ethereum blockchain, making it the first country to anchor a population-scale digital identity system on a public chain, allowing citizens to cryptographically prove attributes such as age, residence or nationality without relying on a centralized database.
Bhutan is also rapidly advancing experiments in combining gold with digital assets. Last week, GMC issued sovereign-backed gold tokens TER on the Solana blockchain. Each token corresponds to physical gold in custody, with DK Bank acting as the exclusive distribution agency. Singay pointed out that by issuing sovereign-branded gold tokens, the GMC hopes to demonstrate how a “crypto-friendly” city can encourage responsible innovation while adhering to the values of transparency, sustainability and long-term trusteeship.