Bhutan, a country in the Himalayas, is investigating ways to mine and utilize green cryptocurrency powered by hydropower to boost its economy, generate jobs, and lessen brain drain, according to the chief executive of its sovereign wealth fund.
Green cryptocurrencies are simply digital currencies where the energy employed in mining does not use fossil fuel power.
Bhutan, which has a US$340 million yearly budget, has made money since emerging as a major Asian country situated between China and India. Two top officials in Thimphu stated that government wages had been funded in part by such money for the last two years.
“The entire nation of Bhutan is powered entirely by hydropower, which we mine here,” said Ujjwal Deep Dahal, CEO of the fund investment firm Druk Holding and Investments Limited. Here in Bhutan, we mine hydropower, which neutralizes the mining that we conduct on digital money and fossil fuels. Therefore, one coin that was mined in Bhutan contributed to the nation’s transition to a green economy, he told Reporters on Tuesday.
According to Dahal, Bhutan’s sole power producing utility is the fund, for which the virtual currency is a strategic investment and a game-changer for the nation, which started include cryptocurrencies in its portfolio in 2019.
Bhutan’s well-known Gross National Happiness (GNH) index is an economic indicator that accounts for factors like recreation, emotional health, and sustainability that are overlooked by standard gross domestic product calculations.
Energy-hungry supercomputers that create digital assets to be added to the blockchain are primarily powered by hydropower.
He stated to reporters, “We are investigating whether some of the large corporations can purchase Bhutan’s green coins in order to meet their targets for social, governance, and environmental norms as well.“
Bitcoin, Dahal said, In addition to more value being added to hydropower energy, quite importantly it has provided access to liquidity in foreign currency, Dahal said, forecasting training in blockchain and AI skills — as emerging technologies — will create jobs for Bhutan’s young people.
About 800,000 people live in the nation that is also witnessing an exodus of its young, educated people. More than a tenth of its young people left the government fold between 2022 and 2023, pushing its youth unemployment to 16.5 percent in 2024, said the government.
But analysts say Bhutan’s plan to see itself as the capital of green digital currency depends on going further down hydropower generation to an additional 33 gigawatts of capacity over the existing 3.5 gigawatts.
In addition to that, Dahal said In next ten to fifteen years we were planning for 15 gigawatts generation.
