Home ›› 04 May 2023 ›› Asia Biz
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.
Economic strategy
Forest-laden Bhutan, sandwiched between China and India, has a population of about 777,000 and has long sought to diversify an economy reliant on hydropower revenues. Druk manages the government’s investments in traditional areas like stocks, bonds, technology, energy and real estate, and also crypto mining and investment under what it calls a “future-facing” strategy.
Bitcoin miners race to solve complex mathematical puzzles using energy-hungry computing rigs, earning new supply of the token in return. That has led to criticism of the environmental fallout when the power is supplied by dirty fuels.
