Bhutan Made $1 Billion in Bitcoin Mining with Hydropower: First Public Details on Fund Usage

The Bhutanese government has carved out a unique position in global sovereign asset allocation by autonomously mining Bitcoin using surplus hydropower resources, ultimately cashing out approximately $1 billion. Unlike other countries that acquire Bitcoin through market purchases or law enforcement seizures, Bhutan's mining machines are powered entirely by underutilized clean energy, bringing its unit cost close to zero. When Bitcoin prices climbed to the $60,000 to $80,000 range, each sale translated into almost pure profit, with energy-to-cash conversion gains estimated at as high as 500%. Following the Bitcoin halving in April 2024, which significantly increased mining costs, Bhutan adjusted its strategy from expanding production to strategic cash-outs, prioritizing locking in profits rather than continuing high-cost production. Previously, Bhutan mined approximately 8,200 Bitcoins in 2023, and the monetization of this asset has become a key support for the country's fiscal transformation.

The funds obtained have not flowed into speculative markets but have been precisely directed towards people's livelihoods and infrastructure: civil servant salaries have been increased by up to 65%, and the universal free healthcare system has been further expanded. More remarkably, in December 2025, the government announced that it would invest as much as 10,000 Bitcoins to build "Paro Mindfulness City"—a national-level economic zone with sustainable development at its core, aimed at reshaping the national economic structure and attracting global green investment. Despite large-scale reductions, as of March 2026, Bhutan still ranks sixth among global sovereign nations in terms of remaining Bitcoin holdings, behind only the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and El Salvador. For a small Himalayan country that most people could not locate on a map five years ago, this achievement is nothing short of a miracle. Unlike El Salvador's model of insisting on "buying one Bitcoin every day" and using it as a legal tender reserve, Bhutan adopts a "revenue-oriented" approach: low-cost production, high-point monetization, and reinvestment into the country. The former relies on political will to promote monetary change, while the latter relies on natural endowments to achieve fiscal value-added. There is no inherent superiority or inferiority between the two models, but they reflect distinctly different national conditions and risk preferences.

Bhutan's experience provides a new paradigm for countries with abundant energy but limited economic scale: how to transform idle resources into national capital in the digital age. If its path continues to be successful, it may trigger a sovereign crypto-fiscal revolution driven by clean energy.