MicroStrategy Buys Another IDR 6.9 Trillion in Bitcoin

Previously, a small landlocked country between India and China had amassed bitcoin (BTC) holdings worth more than USD 780 million in recent years.

At that value, it is almost a third of its gross domestic product (GDP), and makes it the country’s fourth-largest bitcoin reserve holder in the world, according to on-chain analytics tool Arkham.

Bhutan, located in the Himalayan mountains, considers the happiness of its fewer than 900,000 citizens to be a better measure of a country’s well-being than money.

Bhutan becomes the second country after El Salvador to officially hold BTC, in this case as part of its state-owned fund, Druk Holdings.

Bhutan has built Bitcoin mining facilities in several locations, with the largest being in the former Education City project,” Arkham said in a post on the X platform, quoted from Yahoo Finance, Wednesday (18/9/2024).

“Unlike most governments, Bhutan’s bitcoins do not come from asset seizures by law enforcement, but rather from Bitcoin mining operations, which have increased rapidly since early 2023,” he added.

Singapore Company Cooperation

The mines are likely linked to mining giant Bitdeer (BTDR). In 2023, the Singapore-based company said it would work with the Bhutanese government to set up a cryptocurrency mining operation in Southeast Asia and raised more than $500 million for the project.

Shortly after, Bitdeer announced that it had built a 100 megawatt (MW) capacity facility in the first phase of the company’s project.

In April 2024, Bitdeer said it was working to expand Bhutan’s mining capacity to 600 MW by 2025.