I discovered a super interesting Bitcoin news story. Over the past six months, while almost all national governments have not sold their Bitcoin, a very contradictory opposing trend has emerged — El Salvador has been increasing its holdings from 6,376 to 7,600 coins, while Bhutan has been dumping aggressively, selling from a peak of 13,000 down to 4,000.

Speaking of Bhutan, most people's impression is that of a mysterious Buddhist country that proposed the "Gross National Happiness" index. But you might not expect that this country, which only introduced the internet in 1999 and has banned plastic bags to this day, has actually used 9% of its GDP to gamble on Bitcoin. This might be one of the craziest national-level investment decisions in human history.

Bhutan's story begins with hydropower. Located on the southern slopes of the Himalayas, this country has abundant water resources. Summer electricity generation can reach 3,600 MW, but actual demand is only 900 to 1,000 MW. Over 70% of the surplus electricity is forced to be sold at low prices to India, in exchange for Indian Rupees, which cannot be converted into US dollars. This has been Bhutan’s long-term dilemma — holding energy but being "locked out" by the Rupee.

Around 2019, Bhutan found a way out. A technocrat named Ujjwal Deep Dahal, who studied at MIT, keenly realized that these excess hydropower resources could be used to mine Bitcoin. The idea perfectly aligned with Bhutan’s environmental philosophy — water-powered mining does not emit greenhouse gases and can break free from economic dependence on India. Plus, the central high-altitude region of Bhutan has an average annual temperature of only 5.5°C, giving it a natural cooling advantage that significantly reduces mining costs.

From 2021 to 2023, Bhutan invested about $500 million in mining infrastructure. This directly caused foreign exchange reserves to drop from $1.27 billion to just over $500 million. In 2022 alone, importing mining machines cost an amount equivalent to 9% of GDP. The World Bank pointed out at the time that this investment caused Bhutan’s current account deficit to soar to 34.3% of GDP.

But Bhutan’s gamble started to pay off. In 2023, Bitcoin prices surged, and the Bhutanese government used $72 million worth of Bitcoin reserves to give civil servants a 50% salary increase, alleviating the brain drain crisis. In 2025, they took an even more aggressive step — they invested their entire stockpile of up to 10k Bitcoin into a special zone project called "Ghaleep Zen City," with an estimated total investment of up to $1 trillion. This decision seems crazy, but for Bhutan, it’s an "unavoidable gamble" — lacking industrial soil, traditional industry support methods don’t work, so they can only hope to attract global capital through special zones.

Interestingly, Bhutan’s on-chain operations are also far beyond expectations. They’re not just holding coins but converting large amounts of ETH into liquidity staking tokens, which are deposited into Aave to lend out stablecoins. Earlier this year, they experienced a leverage crisis, forced to sell 26,535 ETH to repay a $137 million USDT loan. This shows that Bhutan’s crypto strategy is quite aggressive, involving complex DeFi operations.

As of April 2026, Bitcoin’s price has risen above $70.76k, and Bhutan’s financial situation has clearly improved. The latest IMF report shows their foreign exchange reserves have significantly increased, and their current account deficit is expected to shrink sharply from the peak of 34.3% to 8.62%. This indicates that the pain period of buying mining machines is over, and they have entered a phase of output and monetization.

But there’s a harsh reality. Bhutan’s unemployment rate has indeed fallen from 28.6% in 2022 to 18% in 2025, seemingly created by the Bitcoin mining industry. However, about 66k Bhutanese live abroad, accounting for nearly 8% of the total population. Compared to the global average of 3.6%, Bhutan’s talent outflow rate is alarmingly high. And this number is almost equal to the number of unemployed youth domestically.

Many Bhutanese told reporters that their initial dream was to find a job and settle in their hometown, but with no job opportunities, they were forced to leave. Now they are doing well in Australia, Canada, and other places, and can help their families, but they can never go back. The mines are highly automated, and GMC serves foreign elites. Bitcoin has solved the country-level foreign exchange crisis but cannot resolve the unemployment plight of ordinary Bhutanese.

This country has soared in Bitcoin news and the crypto world, but its people are still struggling in real life. National destiny and people's destiny are sometimes so contradictory.