Bhutan Selling BTC

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An address controlled by the Royal Government of Bhutan (3EAoL) has transferred 929 BTC, worth $66.1M, to a Binance deposit address (bc1qx), possibly indicating a sale of the BTC amount. This is the first transfer out to a centralized exchange since its last deposit into Kraken, four months ago, where 726 BTC was transferred to Kraken deposit address, 3HfhP.

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The Royal Government of Bhutan has been an active Bitcoin miner since as early as 2019, with the government actively funding at least four known mining sites in the country. These mining operations are run by the government’s investment arm, Druk Holding & Investments (DHI). Bhutan’s Bitcoin mining operations are currently turning over ~8.6 BTC/day, which is significantly lower than their 2023 performance, where they were mining ~26 BTC/day. THis could potentially be due to the 2024 Bitcoin Halving or simply due to a rise in global hashrate.

Today, the Royal Government of Bhutan still holds 12,467 BTC, or $899.5M worth, making it the fourth largest government holder of BTC, only behind the United States of America, the United Kingdom and China.