Bhutan moved additional Bitcoin from a sovereign-linked wallet on Thursday, further reducing a months-long run of disposals that have whittled down the kingdom’s BTC reserve. Arkham Intelligence flagged a transfer of about 319 BTC (roughly $22.7 million), bringing total outflows since late October 2024 to over 9,000 BTC.
The transfer follows earlier moves identified by Arkham. In March, the wallet attributed to the Royal Government of Bhutan and its investment arm, Druk Holding & Investment, moved more than 1,667 BTC (about $120 million). Arkham’s tracking shows Bhutan’s publicly linked holdings fell from roughly 13,000 BTC in late 2024 to about 3,654 BTC in April — a reduction on the order of 70%.
Despite the sell-offs, Bhutan remains the fifth-largest publicly tracked nation-state holder, behind the United States (around 328,000 BTC), the United Kingdom (about 61,000 BTC), El Salvador (roughly 7,600 BTC) and the United Arab Emirates (approximately 7,000 BTC). The recent transactions have been inferred from wallet labels and transaction patterns associated with the government and Druk Holding & Investment; Bhutan has not issued a public comment about the disposals.
Background: Bhutan’s “green” Bitcoin strategy
Bhutan built much of its BTC position through state-backed mining that leverages surplus hydropower to run energy-intensive data centers. Officials have pitched this model as a “green Bitcoin economy,” converting excess, carbon-free electricity into a digital export and exploring whether corporations might purchase its low-carbon coins to meet ESG or sustainability targets.
In December 2025 Bhutan announced a Bitcoin Development Pledge, committing up to 10,000 BTC (about $1 billion at the time) to support long-term development of the Gelephu Mindfulness City special administrative region. Authorities said the allocation could be managed in several ways: using Bitcoin as collateral, placing it in low-risk yield-generating instruments, or holding it long term as part of broader plans to anchor the new economic hub in digital assets and sustainable finance.