How Bhutan Is Building A Green Bitcoin Economy From The Ground Up
Bhutan is quietly building a low-carbon Bitcoin economy using hydropower, sovereign capital and clear regulatory guardrails.
Bhutan is using surplus, carbon-free hydropower to mine Bitcoin, converting excess electricity into a liquid digital export rather than curtailing generation.
Mining and custody are handled by the sovereign investment arm, Druk Holding and Investments (DHI), and confined to designated jurisdictions, limiting retail exposure.
Officials describe mined Bitcoin as a foreign-currency liquidity buffer that has already supported government finances.
The central bank permits crypto activity only under a phased, sandbox-style framework linked to Gelephu Mindfulness City, with an emphasis on risk control and transparency.
Bhutan’s pitch to the crypto world is simple: If a country has abundant renewable power and limited domestic demand, it can turn electrons into digital assets.
In practice, the Himalayan kingdom has been quietly doing exactly that: using hydropower to run industrial-scale Bitcoin (BTC) mining and to build a state-backed, values-driven “green digital assets” strategy that officials say can generate hard-currency liquidity, support public spending and help develop a domestic tech workforce.
Bhutan’s energy system is dominated by hydropower, and electricity exports, especially to India, are a core pillar of the economy. Reportedly, Bhutan’s leadership views expanded hydropower capacity as a prerequisite for scaling its “green” crypto ambitions.
The government’s own energy planning documents frame this expansion in large numbers. Bhutan’s National Energy Policy 2025 cites a “techno-economically viable hydropower potential” of 33,000 megawatts (MW), based on the Power System Master Plan 2040, and positions hydropower alongside solar, wind and storage as central to long-term growth.
A World Bank report similarly places Bhutan’s feasible hydropower potential at roughly 33 gigawatts and notes the macroeconomic impact of recent imports of IT equipment linked to crypto mining expansion.
Source: CoinTelegraph
