CryptoNews

Key takeaways

• Bhutan is using surplus, carbon-free hydropower to mine Bitcoin, converting excess electricity into a liquid digital export rather than curtailing generation.

• Mining and custody are handled by the sovereign investment arm, Druk Holding and Investments (DHI), and confined to designated jurisdictions, limiting retail exposure.

• Officials describe mined Bitcoin as a foreign-currency liquidity buffer that has already supported government finances.

• The central bank permits crypto activity only under a phased, sandbox-style framework linked to Gelephu Mindfulness City, with an emphasis on risk control and transparency.

Bhutan’s pitch to the crypto world is simple: If a country has abundant renewable power and limited domestic demand, it can turn electrons into digital assets.

In practice, the Himalayan kingdom has been quietly doing exactly that: using hydropower to run industrial-scale Bitcoin (BTC) mining and to build a state-backed, values-driven “green digital assets” strategy that officials say can generate hard-currency liquidity, support public spending and help develop a domestic tech workforce.

Step 1: Start with the only natural resource that scales

Bhutan’s energy system is dominated by hydropower, and electricity exports, especially to India, are a core pillar of the economy. Reportedly, Bhutan’s leadership views expanded hydropower capacity as a prerequisite for scaling its “green” crypto ambitions.

The government’s own energy planning documents frame this expansion in large numbers. Bhutan’s National Energy Policy 2025 cites a “techno-economically viable hydropower potential” of 33,000 megawatts (MW), based on the Power System Master Plan 2040, and positions hydropower alongside solar, wind and storage as central to long-term growth.

A World Bank report similarly places Bhutan’s feasible hydropower potential at roughly 33 gigawatts and notes the macroeconomic impact of recent imports of IT equipment linked to crypto mining expansion.

Recent cross-border project announcements underline how tangible the buildout has become. In November 2025, India inaugurated the 1,020-MW Punatsangchhu-II hydropower project and extended a new credit line tied to deeper energy cooperation. Officials also noted that Bhutan’s domestic power demand is around 1,000 MW, with surplus electricity exported.

Step 2: Use surplus hydropower as “computing fuel”

Bhutan’s crypto strategy is spearheaded by Druk Holding and Investments (DHI), the commercial investment arm of the royal government.

In an April 2025 interview with Reuters, DHI CEO Ujjwal Deep Dahal said Bhutan began adding cryptocurrencies to DHI’s portfolio in 2019. He framed Bitcoin mining as a way to increase access to foreign-currency liquidity and create value from surplus hydropower.

Bhutan has used some crypto-related profits to help pay government salaries for the past two years, according to senior officials in Thimphu.

A key industrial lever is the Bitdeer and DHI partnership, announced in May 2023. Bitdeer said the parties planned to launch a closed-end fund of up to $500 million to develop carbon-free digital asset mining operations in Bhutan, leveraging the country’s renewable power and Bitdeer’s mining expertise.

Step 3: Treat Bitcoin like a financial buffer for a seasonal grid

Hydropower systems often face a timing problem: Generation can surge when rivers run high and shrink when flows drop.

In January 2025, Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) project described the country’s approach as a way to monetize surplus summer hydropower via “green Bitcoin,” then convert that value back into electricity or imports when power is tighter. The project quoted DHI’s Dahal as describing Bitcoin “strategically as a battery.”

That “battery” framing matters because it is one of Bhutan’s most consistent arguments for why mining is not merely speculation. Instead, it is positioned as infrastructure-adjacent, turning otherwise curtailed renewable generation into a liquid reserve asset.

Step 4: Keep it sovereign and increasingly regulated

Bhutan’s mining and reserve-building efforts have attracted attention because they are state-linked rather than purely private. In September 2024, blockchain analytics firm Arkham disclosed that it had identified Bhutan government-linked Bitcoin holdings on its platform and characterized those holdings as originating from mining rather than seizures. However, onchain estimates fluctuate with price movements and wallet attribution and should not be treated as audited public accounts.

On the regulatory front, Bhutan’s central bank, the Royal Monetary Authority (RMA), has publicly signaled a controlled approach. In an April 30, 2025, notice titled “RMA’s Regulatory Stance on Cryptocurrency,” the RMA said it would adopt a phased and focused strategy.

The notice stated that crypto mining and exchanges would be permitted only for entities registered with GMC. Participation would also be limited to business partners operating under the GMC framework.

This sandbox-like containment aligns with how GMC is being positioned as a special jurisdiction with its own policy toolkit and a prominent finance and digital assets pillar. That framework includes a proposed blockchain-linked currency concept, “ter,” and a planned fully reserved digital bank, Oro Bank.

Did you know? In 2024, Bhutan’s state-linked Bitcoin mining operations generated an estimated $750 million in revenue, according to blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence.

Step 5: The “green coin” narrative and the risks involved

Bhutan’s officials explicitly emphasize the climate angle. For example, Dahal has argued that coins mined using Bhutan’s hydropower offset coins mined with fossil energy elsewhere and contribute to the green economy.

But even in a renewables-heavy system, these risks do not disappear:

• Volatility and fiscal risk: Bitcoin’s price can swing sharply, and using volatile assets in public finance introduces budgeting risk, even if holdings are built from surplus power rather than taxes.

• Transparency: Onchain tracking is not the same as official disclosure. Audited reporting and clear governance matter when reserves are state-linked.

• Financial crime and consumer protection: The RMA’s phased stance and the restriction of permitted activity to GMC-registered entities reflect a preference for controlled participation rather than open retail speculation.

Testing a green Bitcoin model

Bhutan’s green Bitcoin economy is not a meme trade; it is a state-directed effort to bolt a new export, digital assets, onto the country’s existing comparative advantage in renewable power. The strategy uses a special jurisdiction, Gelephu Mindfulness City, alongside central bank guardrails to limit spillover risk.

Whether it becomes a durable model will depend less on slogans and more on hydropower expansion, disciplined reserve management and how transparently the state accounts for what it mines, holds and sells.

Key takeaways

• Wall Street’s adoption of Ethereum is closely tied to its ability to automate settlement through smart contracts, reducing reliance on slow, manual reconciliation processes.

• Stablecoins and tokenized dollars now serve as a primary entry point for banks, allowing regulated US dollar transfers to move continuously on Ethereum-based rails.

• Financial institutions often avoid naming Ethereum directly, instead describing it as neutral blockchain infrastructure that supports compliant financial systems.

• Tokenized funds and real-world assets use Ethereum as a distribution and administration layer, while the underlying investments remain traditional financial products.

For years, the financial world viewed Ethereum primarily as a playground for digital art and digital assets. By 2025, however, a gradual shift had become clear. Wall Street had largely stopped treating the network as a “crypto” project and had begun using it as a foundational utility.

By late 2025, Ethereum was processing more than $5 trillion in quarterly transaction volume, a figure comparable in scale to traditional payment processors. Major institutions are now migrating value onto this digital rail, often without ever mentioning the word “cryptocurrency,” turning Ethereum into an increasingly used settlement layer in specific institutional contexts.

This article examines how the world’s leading financial institutions are quietly adopting Ethereum’s decentralized infrastructure.

Ethereum as financial plumbing, not a crypto asset

To the average observer, Ethereum is a “coin” to be traded. To Wall Street, however, it has become something far more practical: high-tech financial plumbing. In August 2025, VanEck CEO Jan van Eck labeled Ethereum the “Wall Street token,” highlighting that the network’s underlying architecture, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), is becoming a global standard for bank-to-bank settlement.

Unlike legacy systems that require manual reconciliation, Ethereum functions as a “single source of truth,” where transactions are verified by a global network of nodes rather than a central clearinghouse.

Instead of relying on routes that can take days to clear trades, institutions are using Ethereum’s smart contracts to automate much of the manual work handled by middle-office operations.

This shift enables T+0 settlement, meaning transactions clear instantly. Previously, a trade would settle on a T+2 basis, as banks exchanged messages to verify funds and positions. On Ethereum, the asset transfer and the payment occur at the same moment.

In this context, Ethereum functions as foundational infrastructure that allows the traditional financial system to operate faster, at a lower cost and with fewer errors. Because Ethereum is value-agnostic, it serves as a neutral platform where financial agreements can be codified and executed without human intervention.

Stablecoins and tokenization as the entry point

Wall Street’s adoption of Ethereum’s infrastructure is also visible in the rapid growth of “tokenized dollars.” Following the passage of the GENIUS Act in July 2025, a landmark piece of US legislation that established a clear framework for stablecoins, the total market capitalization of these assets climbed to $300 billion. For banks, stablecoins on Ethereum represent digital versions of the US dollar that can move around the clock, avoiding the settlement risk associated with traditional banking hours and weekend closures.

Traditional payment giants such as Visa and Mastercard have integrated stablecoin settlement APIs to support global payments on the network. These firms are not interacting with the speculative side of crypto. Instead, they are using Ethereum-based stablecoins to settle transactions between merchants and banks in near real time.

As banks adapt to client demand for faster cross-border transfers, the Ethereum network provides the secure infrastructure needed to move these regulated digital dollars.

Did you know? The GENIUS Act, signed into law on July 18, 2025, became the first federal framework to formally authorize US banks to issue stablecoins through subsidiaries. This shift repositioned Ethereum from a regulatory gray area into a legally compliant infrastructure layer for the US dollar.

Tokenized funds and real-world assets

The evolution of Ethereum has moved beyond payments into the tokenization of more complex investment vehicles. In December 2025, JPMorgan made headlines by launching its first money market fund on the public Ethereum blockchain. Trading under the ticker MONY, the fund allows qualified investors to access yields from traditional US Treasury securities, using Ethereum as the distribution layer.

By placing a fund like MONY on the Ethereum blockchain, JPMorgan enabled peer-to-peer transferability and daily dividend reinvestment that were previously difficult to achieve. Investors can subscribe or redeem using cash or stablecoins through institutional platforms. In this structure, Ethereum is not the investment itself. It functions as the digital wrapper that increases liquidity and operational efficiency.

This development marks a turning point in which Ethereum’s smart contracts handle much of the operational burden of fund administration, significantly reducing overhead costs. By automating yield distribution through code, Ethereum allows these funds to operate with a level of precision and transparency that legacy databases cannot easily replicate.

The strategic silence: Why Wall Street is not naming Ethereum

If you examine the marketing materials of top-tier banks, you will see terms such as “onchain liquidity,” “distributed ledgers” or “programmable payments,” yet the underlying technology is almost always Ethereum. This “invisible” adoption helps explain why Ethereum is frequently chosen by Wall Street institutions.

A key technical driver is the network effect. Much like the internet relies on standardized protocols, the financial system is converging around Ethereum’s programming standards. By late 2025, multiple reports suggested that tokenized dollars on the network were quietly reshaping how money moves between major clearinghouses.

As more assets such as treasuries, bonds and real estate are tokenized on Ethereum, the network’s utility becomes increasingly evident in institutional use cases. Since its launch in 2024, BlackRock’s BUIDL fund has become the world’s largest tokenized money market fund, deploying more than $1 billion directly on the Ethereum blockchain to enable near real-time dividend distribution.

Similarly, in late 2025, JPMorgan rebranded its blockchain division as Kinexys, facilitating more than $2 billion in average daily transaction volume through Ethereum-compatible rails.

By relying on Ethereum’s “credible neutrality,” these firms avoid the constraints of proprietary private blockchains that lack global interoperability. Instead, they treat Ethereum as a neutral and largely invisible settlement layer. As a result, the network has begun to function as a standardized operating system for global capital, regardless of whether the brand is explicitly acknowledged in boardrooms.