Bhutan government moves another 100 BTC as 2026 bitcoin outflows top $230 million: Arkham

The Royal Government of Bhutan transferred approximately 100.44 BTC ($8.2 million) to an unlabeled address on Tuesday, continuing an accelerating outflow streak.

Bhutan transferred the funds to an address starting "bc1qn" at 5:27 a.m. UTC in three transactions, according to the onchain analytics platform Arkham, which began tracking the tiny Himalayan kingdom's bitcoin (BTC) holdings in 2024.

Arkham said the transfers appeared to be for selling, adding to outflows from Bhutan labeled addresses of more than $230 million since the start of the year, or around $50 million worth of bitcoin per month. "If they manage to sell everything at the current price of BTC, they would exit the market with $767 million of onchain profit," the analysts said.

The specific reason for the transfers remains unknown, although some prior transfers were tracked as deposits to crypto exchange Binance and investment manager Galaxy Digital. However, the latest transfers could also represent a consolidation of funds, with the assets moved from an older bitcoin address starting "3" to a more modern format starting "bc1q."

Starting with a 1, legacy Pay-to-PubKey-Hash (P2PKH) addresses are the oldest style of Bitcoin addresses. After that came Pay-to-Script-Hash (P2SH) addresses starting with 3, then native SegWit (P2WPKH) addresses starting with bc1q, and finally Taproot (P2TR) addresses starting with bc1p — the most up-to-date format.

According to Arkham, Bhutan still holds some 3,119 BTC, which is currently valued at around $252.3 million — down from a peak of approximately 13,000 BTC in October 2024 and dropping by nearly 3,000 BTC year-to-date.

Hydroelectric-powered bitcoin mining

The government's bitcoin is held in the custody of Bhutan's state investment wing, Druk Holding & Investments. Bhutan's balance makes it the eighth-largest known nation-state holder of bitcoin, behind the United States (328,372 BTC), China (190,000 BTC), the United Kingdom (61,245 BTC), Ukraine (46,351 BTC), El Salvador (7,649 BTC), the United Arab Emirates (6,420 BTC), and Kazakhstan (3,544 BTC), according to Bitcoin Treasuries data.

While many countries tend to acquire their bitcoin via criminal seizures, Bhutan has been mining it to build up its reserves, leveraging its abundant hydroelectric power to drive eco-friendly mining operations. However, speculation has grown over whether the government has stopped mining, as its last bitcoin inflow exceeding $100,000 occurred more than a year ago, per Arkham.