The Bhutanese Leading the way.
There has been much speculation over Bhutan’s decision to mine Bitcoins and what it means.
It is good that the Druk Holding and Investments has come forward and transparently laid out what it is doing and why.
It is important to know that Bhutan is not ‘gambling’ or has ‘lost’ any money on the venture, but rather it is generating returns for us and will continue to do in the long run.
There maybe those who are wondering why Bhutan decided to mine digital assets, and here the simple answer is that we are taking up a project that is not impacted by our small population or market and landlocked nature which has been the bane of most of our economic ventures.
Bhutan has not been able to achieve self sufficiency so far because none of the economic activities have suited us so far.
We do not have the arable land for mass agriculture and instead we import food. Our industries have very limited advantages and we cannot compete with others.
Our market is too small with our small population and we do not have the resources to scale up.
However, the beauty of the Fourth Industrial revolution is that it no longer matters if you have a small population and are landlocked. Here the first movers who make the right and early investments stand to gain a lot.
A small example here would be Taiwan which moved early on computer chips and no major economy has been able to catch up.
Bhutan’s entry into mining digital assets is a careful decision that plays to our advantages of cheap power for mining and the cool mountain breeze to keep the computers cool.
Our entry into this space is not just for mining but it is part of a broader and varied push into the fourth industrial revolution. The digital asset mining is a low hanging fruit that we must take advantage of early on. The future is tech.
Innovation is the calling card of the future.
Anna Eshoo