For years, Bután has measured its economic and social development using unusual currencies: happiness and sustainability.
But in the midst of growing economic pain and a brain leak, the small kingdom of Himalayas without a coast is adopting a new Emblem of Progreso, which is preventing Bután in a main role, worldwide, to adopt financial innovation: Bitcoin.
Located between India and China, Bután, also the first country in the world to become negative of carbon, has extracted millions of dollars in the most popular cryptocurrency in the world in recent years, which makes an almost economic commitment.
So why is Bután to be big in Bitcoin? How is it undermining energy intensive cryptocurrency? How much wealth in Bitcoin does the country have? And its movement is risky, given the wild fluctuations in the prices that the digital currency has witnessed over the years?
What is Bitcoin and how mine?
Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency from equal to equal, created in 2008. It is not controlled by any government.
People can buy and sell cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, and these transactions are recorded in a shared accounting book called Blockchain. Bitcoin has value because there is a finite number of bitcoins that can exist in the block chain, around 21 million. Most of these currencies have extracted bone and are approximately 1 million.
Bitcoin Mining is the process through which new bitcoins are officially added to the block chain. To extract bitcoin, a supercomputer that achieves energy needs to solve a complex puzzle. This adds a new digital currency in the circulation.
What is Bitcoin Minero Butan?
Bután hydroelectric plants combine supercomputers that solve complex problems to be rewarded with bitcoin, which can be added to the block chain.
“It is only a simple strategic choice that many people have made and won billions of dollars, and I think that governments should do so,” said Butanés Prime Minister, Tobgay, Bernard Smith from Al Jazeera in the capital, Thimps, in March.
Tobgay explained that the duration of the summer months, there is more water flow and hydroelectric plants generate more energy than necessary.
“That’s where Bitcoin Mining makes a great meaning,” Tobgay said.
Why Butan faces an economic crisis?
The country is in the midst of the growing economic challenges, and Bitcoin mining is among a set of steps that the nation of 800,000 people is a turn to get out of the crisis.
The country has no exit to the sea, and Altegh, just over 38,000 km2 (14,672 square miles), is almost as large as Switzerland, most of this land is not cultivable due to its mountainous terrain. Bután imports most of his food from India, which Tobgay described as the “closest friend and neighbor” of the kingdom.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Bután is $ 3.52 billion in 2025. According to this, tourism contributes approximately 3.4 percent to the country’s GDP. However, after Covid-19 shook the industry, Bután has fought to attract people back to visit their mountains, forests and Buddhist sanctuaries.
Bután has long controlled how many tourists houses to ensure that its pristine ecology is not affected by a higher footprint than it can handle. It charges a sustainable development rate or $ 100 to foreign tourists. The only exception to this rule is the tourists of India, who have to pay $ 15. Tobgay says that the vision behind this is to attract tourists of “high value and low volume.”
But now, Bután is struggling to obtain only the limited number of tourists he was. According to Tobgay, the country can organize approximately 300,000 tourists every year.
“Last year, I think of 150,000 tourists visited,” said Prime Minister.
Bután’s Youth Inemployment rate was 19 percent in 2024. The global average youthful unmployer rate in 2023 was 13.6 percent, according to the World Bank.
How could Bitcoin help Bután fight against his economic challenges?
One of the most powerful symptoms of the Bután crisis is the exodus of young people and educated to other countries in recent years, and their departure only aggravates the country’s economic struggle.
Only in 2022, more than 10 percent of the qualified and educated population of Bután left the country. Australia, one of the main destination countries, saw its butaneous immigrant population more than double in five years between 2016 and 2021.
“We have jobs in Bután, but they cannot compete against wages that can in other places in developed countries,” Tobgay said.
This brain leak has also exhausted Bután’s civil services. There was a strong increase in public officials left by the system services since 2019, with the number of officials who renounce to increase until 2023, the Bután (BBS) broadcasting service financed by the State in April 2024 reported.
This is where Bitcoin, as an economic resource, seems to have helped: in 2023, the butan government sold $ 100 million of the cryptocurrency to double the salaries of public officials, he reported from Thimps de Al Jazeera.
Since then, the BBS reported a marginal decrease in public officials that renounce their work. In the first quarter of 2024, 500 officials resigned, compared to the almost 1,900 that resigned in the same period in 2023.
How much Bitcoin has bután?
Bután has not formally revealed how much it remains in the cryptocurrency.
However, according to the intelligence firm Blockchain Arkham, Bitcoin’s holdings of Bután are worth more than $ 600 million of axis or April 9, which represents about 30 percent of the GDP of the kingdom.
Arkham’s data suggest that Bután also has other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum and Linqai. Although the holdings of the kingdom of these currencies are much narrower than those of Bitcoin.
The king of Bután, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, has advised for a long time for the country to invest in its digital infrastructure.
“Being a small nation makes us an intelligent nation: this is not of choice but by necessity,” said the king in a 2019 speech. “Technology is an indispensable tool that will be necessary to perform this aspiration.”
Is Bitcoin mining of Bután sustainable?
Bitcoin Mining is one of the few companies that allows Bután, a constitutional monarchy, to increase its economy while aligning with its values as a country, analysts say.
“The number of investments in the private sector flowing to Bután are quite limited by the restrictions that come with Bután’s mandate to maintain around 60 percent of forest coverage and the focus on happiness and the conservation of bundling, instead of Gowdara Shivamurthy, an associated fellow of the Research Foundation based in New Delhi (Orf) Jazeera
This limitation is also something that Prime Minister Tobgay spoke.
“We have a leg aware of being very careful with direct investment,” Tobgay said. “We have bone carefully by allowing industries that damage the environment, which would contaminate our air, which would undermine our culture.”
What Bután has is an environment and natural resources that lead to the cryptocurrency, said the SHIVAMURTHY of the ORF.
The capital, the Thimphu and other regions have cold temperatures, reducing the need to use the cooling systems necessary too much to prevent supercomputers from overheating. The average temperatures in the country remain between approximately 15-30 degrees Celsius (59-86 degrees Fahrenheit) during the year, according to the World Bank data.
The country also produces more hydroelectric than it consumes.
“It is important that Bután take advantage of the green energy we have in terms of Bitcoin mining as part of our investment portfolio,” Ujwal Deep Dahal, CEO of Druk Holding and Investments, the commercial arm and investment of the Royal Government.
Bután exports hydroelectricity to India. But Bitcoin Mining gives Bután an alternative to exports. Where tariff rates are good, sell power to India. In projects where rates are not good, Bután maintains power and uses it to extract Bitcoin, explained the SHIVAMURTHY of the ORF.
“Instead of exporting [hydropower] At a very cheap pace, we are using it to extract bitcoins in the high mountains of Bután, ”he told Al Jazeera, editor in Chief of Butanese, editor -in -chief of the butan newspaper, a private weekly with headquarters in Thimphu.
In addition to Bitcoin mining, the country is building a special administrative region and an economic center, the City of Full Attention of Gerefu, to combine its ideals of sustainability and well -being with commercial growth. The city is an urban development project with low -altitude buildings, sustainable businesses, residential areas, a national park and a wildlife sanctuary.
Other governments are undermining Bitcoin?
While governments distrusted Bitcoin in their early days, many are now changing their approach.
On March 6, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, established a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Besighes in the United States, El Salvador has almost $ 550 million in Bitcoin, the government announced on March 5.
Other governments, such as the Central African Republic and France, are beginning to recognize Bitcoin as a legal tender.
On April 7, Pakistan appointed Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, which is the largest exchange of cryptocurrencies worldwide, as an advisor to the Crypto counter of Pakistan (PCC), an established regulatory body Itepet.
