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(Kitco News) -
Bhutan, the tiny Himalayan nation sandwiched between Asian supergiants India and China, may already be a major player in crypto holdings and Bitcoin mining, according to multiple recent reports.
The kingdom confirmed to Forbes on April 30 that it has been using its considerable hydroelectricity resources to mine Bitcoin for years, flying under the radar since as long ago as 2017 even as more recent crypto-adopting countries like El Salvador face enormous scrutiny.
A new report from Bloomberg that Bhutan’s investment arm, Druk Holding & Investments, has partnered with Nasdaq-listed Bitdeer Technologies Group to create a $500 million fund to further develop the country’s crypto mining has many wondering just how many Bitcoin they’ve mined, and how much the mining operation has made to date.
“It’s important for us to look at assets that are low volume, high value, or digital assets for that matter, and try to position ourselves in a way that we can be competitive globally over time to build our economy,” said Ujjwal Deep Dahal, Druk’s chief executive officer.
Bitdeer is based in Singapore and is one of the largest crypto miners by computing power. The firm began trading on the Nasdaq exchange just last month. The company plans to build a 100-megawatt Bitcoin mining facility in Bhutan, with construction slated to start in Q2 2023 and finish by September according to a regulatory filing.
Druk and Bitdeer intend to begin reaching out to institutional investors at the end of this month, and both companies will invest in the fund as well.
Dahal said that Druk began mining crypto on behalf of Bhutan when Bitcoin was trading around $5,000, well ahead of its all-time high of $68,789.63 set in 2021.
It’s unclear how aggressively Bhutan was mining over the last six years, and it’s impossible to know how much BTC they sold and at what levels. But if chip imports are any indication, it goes far beyond the “sandbox” approach they began with.
The country has imported over $193 million in computer chips in the last few years, including approximately $142 million in 2022 alone, representing 10% of Bhutan’s inbound trade and 15% of the government’s $930 million annual budget.
If these mining rigs were tapping even a fraction of what their immense power generation capacity would suggest, Bhutan may have quietly gone about becoming a major player in the cryptosphere, with holdings and profits that would be the envy of all but the biggest Bitcoin whales.
