Bhutan allocates 10,000 Bitcoin reserves to build Glepup Mindfulness City, promoting the development of mining and fintech industries

【Chain Wen】The Bhutan government has announced an ambitious plan: to build the Glerup Mindfulness City (GMC) with a reserve of 10,000 Bitcoins. This special administrative region is located in southern Bhutan and is set to begin operations in 2024.

The logic behind this is quite straightforward—Bhutan faces the challenge of a declining young population and needs to create more high-end job opportunities to retain talent. GMC covers approximately 1,544 square miles, about one-tenth of Bhutan’s land area, with plans to develop multiple industry clusters including finance, tourism, green energy, technology, healthcare, and agriculture. Notably, this special zone offers regulatory flexibility for cryptocurrency and fintech companies and strongly supports Bitcoin mining development.

Bhutan’s Bitcoin reserve ranks fifth globally, holding about 11,286 coins, currently valued at over $986 million. Most of these Bitcoins come from the country’s mining activities—leveraging abundant hydroelectric power for energy-intensive computational operations. Using 10,000 Bitcoins to invest in this new city this year is essentially a bet on transforming crypto assets into long-term economic growth.

This move signals that more and more countries are beginning to view Bitcoin reserves as strategic assets, moving beyond passive holdings to actively exploring their potential in economic development. For those interested in macro policies and the crypto market, this warrants ongoing attention.