The Bhutanese Leading the way.
In recent times, apart from news of the growing value of Bhutan’s Bitcoin stack, another major point of discussion and news has been Bhutan steadily selling parts of these holdings.
According to Arkham, Bhutan has, since July 2024, sold 2,077 Bitcoins (BTC) worth USD 163 million (mn) which is Nu 13.834 billion (bn).
However, according to several online Crypto news sites, the bulk of the sales have happened between October, November and December 2024 when the price of Bitcoins surged.
Bhutan’s wallet has moved 1,696 BTC, valued at $139 million, since Bitcoin’s price surge in late October.
Cryptopotato.com says these sales, carried out through Binance and QCP Capital, were made at an average price of USD 81,999 per BTC.
According to the crypto news site bitcoinist.com, on 10th December, the government dispatched 502 Bitcoin, or around USD 49.42 million, to two platforms, Binance and QCP Capital.
The big question is, what is the Nu 13.834 bn being used for after the sale of crypto?
Here, a source said that the money is being used in three areas.
The first is to support the 50% pay hike given to civil servants and public servants for two financial years from July 2023 till June 2025. The total pay hike bill per year is Nu 6 bn coming to Nu 12 bn in two years.
The Bitcoin project under DHI had committed to support Nu 4 bn of this hike for two years coming to a total commitment of Nu 8 bn for two financial years.
The second reason for the sales is to pay electricity bills mainly to the Bhutan Power Corporation. Electricity comprises around 95% of the cost of production of mining Bitcoins.
The third reason is the cost of operations and maintaining the machines.
In all of the above, the money is being pumped back into the Bhutanese economy.
Several crypto analysts and online sites have all said that Bhutan has timed these sales well, just when the coin hit the higher end of the prices.
On 14th November 2024, Bhutan made a big sale through Binance, offloading 367 BTC for about USD 33.5 million. At the same time, the alpha coin hit an intraday high of more than USD 90,000.
This transaction was one of the Bhutanese government’s more lucrative decisions, according to Arkham Intelligence, demonstrating its skill at market timing.
According to Spot on Chain’s X account, Bhutan holds Bitcoins across 7 wallets.
Despite the strategic sales of Bitcoins, Bhutan holds 11,688 Bitcoins valued at USD 1.17 bn as of Friday evening, and is still the world’s fourth largest holder of Bitcoins, as a country.
The expectation was that the 1020 MW P II project would help take some of the salary hike load this year with an 15th August 2024 inauguration, but due to seepage issues the project has to do some repair work and the plan is to start generation from 17th December 2024.
