Bhutan plans $500 million crypto mining fund with Jihan Wu's Bitdeer

Druk Holding & Investments (DHI), the commercial arm of Bhutan's government, and Jihan Wu's crypto mining company Bitdeer Technologies are seeking to jointly raise up to $500 million for a crypto mining fund.

The fundraising process is expected to begin at the end of this month, the two entities announced Wednesday. Singapore-based Bitdeer will serve as the general partner of the fund and DHI will act as a strategic limited partner.

"The partnership with Bitdeer to launch a carbon-free digital asset mining datacenter represents an investment in a more connected and sustainable domestic economy, helping ensure we are at the forefront of global innovation," Ujjwal Deep Dahal, CEO of DHI, said in the announcement.

Bhutan has been mining bitcoin for years

Bhutan, a Himalayan kingdom with a population of less than a million people, has been quietly mining bitcoin for the past few years, Forbes reported Friday. DHI, specifically, entered the mining space when the price of bitcoin was around $5,000, Dahal told the local newspaper The Bhutanese last week. Bitcoin is currently trading at around $28,600.

DHI had also borrowed millions of dollars in digital assets from two now-bankrupt crypto lenders BlockFi and Celsius and those dues have been settled, according to Dahal's comments to The Bhutanese.

DHI's new partnership with Bitdeer shows Bhutan remains interested in crypto despite recent market turmoil. The project is expected to create local jobs and generate foreign-currency-denominated revenue for Bhutan and its people.

Bitdeer's Bhutan plans

Bitdeer, a spinoff from Bitmain Technology, a Chinese bitcoin mining-chip manufacturing giant co-founded by Wu, listed on Nasdaq last month through a reverse merger with a SPAC.

The company expects to set up a 100-megawatt mining operation in Bhutan, with construction expected to begin in the second quarter of the year and complete in the third quarter, according to a recent regulatory filing.

Bitdeer is also exploring other sites for the construction of its mining data centers with an initial focus on North America, North Europe, Central Asia and Southeast Asia, per the filing.