Kingdom of Bhutan Allocated Part of Its Reserves to Buy Cryptocurrency
Bhutan’s sovereign investment fund Druk Holding & Investments, with assets of $2.9 billion, was a client of the bankrupt BlockFi and Celsius. This follows from court documents, writes Forbes.
The company did not disclose its investments in Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT and other digital assets.
Journalists noted that confirmation of Druk Holding & Investments as a sovereign fund would mark the first public investments in cryptocurrencies by such structures.
Forbes noted that Singapore’s Temasek denied investments in digital assets. The Norwegian sovereign fund in 2020 indirectly owned 600 BTC through a stake in MicroStrategy.
Druk Holding & Investments was established in 2007 on the basis of a charter of King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck to safeguard the country’s wealth “in the long term for the benefit of its shareholders, the Bhutanese people”.
The firm is the controlling shareholder of 21 local companies, including Royal Butan Airlines, whose fleet consists of five aircraft.
Forbes did not rule out that Druk Holding & Investments could become a defendant in the platform’s lawsuit, as the latter’s lawyers said they intended to seek the return of deposits made within 90 days of the bankruptcy.
In March 2023, BlockFi’s lawyers accused the firm of failing to fulfill obligations to repay a $30 million loan in USDC. According to the suit, the fund refused to fulfill the obligations even after liquidation of collateral amounting to 1,888 BTC (about $76.5 million at the time of the deal’s initiation), leaving an unpaid balance of $820,000.
A spokesperson for Druk Holding & Investments told the publication that the claims were being settled and declined to comment further.
In 2021, Bhutan’s Royal Monetary Authority entered into a partnership with fintech company Ripple to conduct pilot testing CBDC.
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