Bhutan Continues to Develop Its National Digital Asset Ecosystem

The Kingdom of Bhutan signed a multi-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Cumberland DRW LLC, an institutional market maker and one of the world’s largest global liquidity providers in the digital asset market, to develop digital asset infrastructure in the Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) region.

The document sets out the key intentions of the parties, including:

• establishing a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies in Bhutan;
• creating infrastructure for issuing a national stablecoin;
• developing sustainable mining and AI computing;
• improving the efficiency of managing the country’s crypto reserves.

Under the agreement, Cumberland will provide expertise and access to global liquidity, while the Bhutanese administration will focus on infrastructure powered by renewable energy.

The project will be implemented by Green Digital, a subsidiary of GMC responsible for hosting computing capacity. The company will build hydropower-based centers, integrating green technologies into the country’s financial system. Gelay Jamtsho, Chair of Green Digital, noted that the partnership will make it possible to combine Bhutan’s sustainable energy resources with international capital markets. According to Donald Wilson, Founder of DRW, which includes Cumberland, the cooperation will help accelerate the development of a modern digital economy in the kingdom.

Bhutan actively uses its own hydropower resources for Bitcoin mining. The country holds 5,984 BTC on its balance sheet. Significant technological changes are also underway in the kingdom’s digital infrastructure. Last autumn, the national digital identity system was migrated to the Ethereum blockchain, and recently the sovereign digital token TER, backed by gold, was issued.