Druk Holding & Investments moved another 319.7 BTC on Wednesday, continuing a methodical liquidation that has cut the kingdom's holdings by more than 70% from their 13,000 BTC peak.
Bhutan's state investment arm moved another 319.7 bitcoin — roughly $23 million at current prices — on Wednesday, extending a methodical liquidation that has cut the country's sovereign holdings by more than 70% from their peak.
On-chain tracking by OnchainLens and Arkham Intelligence shows the funds left Druk Holding & Investments wallets in two tranches: one to a newly created address with no prior history, the other to a wallet that has previously routed funds through OKX and Galaxy Digital. The pattern is consistent with what Druk Holding has done all year — distributing bitcoin to intermediaries and exchanges in batches large enough to generate meaningful fiat proceeds but small enough to avoid moving the price.
Bhutan's bitcoin stack now stands at approximately 3,954 BTC, worth about $281 million. That figure peaked at roughly 13,000 BTC in October 2024, when the kingdom's hydropower-funded mining operation was among the most improbable sovereign wealth stories in crypto. Since then, outflows have topped $200 million in 2026 alone, with cumulative sales exceeding $150 million by late March before Wednesday's transfer added another chunk.
The sell-off isn't a panic exit. Druk Holding — the government-owned conglomerate that oversees Bhutan's commercial assets, from a national airline to telecommunications — appears to be executing a planned treasury rebalancing. In December 2025, Bhutan pledged up to 10,000 BTC to fund Gelephu Mindfulness City, a special economic zone on the Indian border designed to attract international business and hold digital assets in its financial reserves. The bitcoin being sold is, in part, financing the infrastructure that's supposed to make Bhutan a crypto-friendly jurisdiction.
The irony hasn't been lost on market observers. A country selling bitcoin to build a city that will hold bitcoin is the kind of circular logic that makes sovereign crypto treasuries so difficult to evaluate. But Bhutan has a practical constraint that most crypto-native treasury firms don't: it has to build roads, power plants, and regulatory frameworks with actual money. Bitcoin doesn't pave highways.
Bhutan isn't the only sovereign seller applying pressure. The broader pattern of public-company and government bitcoin disposals accelerated in early 2026, with Riot Platforms and several treasury firms also reducing positions. Galaxy Digital warned last week that at least five crypto treasury firms face asset sales or closure as the gap between their net asset values and market prices widens. Strategy — the company formerly known as MicroStrategy — posted a $14.5 billion unrealised loss on its bitcoin holdings in the first quarter, though it responded by buying more.
The mechanics of Bhutan's sell-off offer a rare window into how a sovereign entity actually unwinds a crypto position. Unlike El Salvador, which scaled back its bitcoin legal tender experiment under IMF pressure but has largely held its coins, Bhutan is actively liquidating — and doing so through over-the-counter channels and exchange deposits rather than on-market dumps. The approach is methodical: roughly 500 BTC per week since February, with occasional pauses that suggest someone is watching the tape.
Whether Bhutan's remaining 3,954 BTC stay in the treasury or continue flowing out depends on Gelephu's financing schedule and the government's appetite for further drawdown. The city's master plan calls for hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure spending over the next five years. At $71,000 per coin, Bhutan's remaining stack covers a fraction of that cost.
Druk Holding has not commented publicly on the transfers. The wallets that Arkham attributes to the entity are monitored by several on-chain analytics firms, and each major movement is flagged within minutes — a level of transparency that Bhutan never volunteered but can't avoid on a public blockchain.
The kingdom's bitcoin per capita, once among the highest of any nation, has fallen below that of El Salvador's government holdings. At 3,954 BTC for a population of roughly 780,000, Bhutan holds about 0.005 BTC per citizen — still a remarkable figure for a Himalayan nation whose GDP is smaller than many American counties.
