The Royal Government of Bhutan has resumed selling down its sovereign Bitcoin holdings after roughly a month of inactivity, moving 434.87 BTC worth approximately $27.93 million, according to on-chain tracker Lookonchain. The transfer continues a drawdown that has been running for well over a year and has already reduced the kingdom's holdings by more than 70% from their peak.
Bhutan built its Bitcoin position through state-backed mining operations that took advantage of the country's abundant hydroelectric power. At its peak in late 2024, those holdings were estimated at nearly 13,000 BTC. Since then, the government has sold in a steady, deliberate pattern — typically in batches between $5 million and $10 million — rather than through a single large liquidation, with year-to-date sales in 2026 alone estimated to have crossed $230 million.
A treasury drawdown, not a fire sale
Analysts tracking the wallets have characterized the pattern as planned liquidity management rather than distressed selling, noting transfers have flowed to trading firms like QCP Capital in a manner consistent with an orderly treasury strategy. Bhutan also appears to have slowed or halted new Bitcoin mining inflows into its state wallets over the past year, meaning the current holdings are being drawn down without meaningful replenishment. If the current pace of sales continues, some estimates suggest the government's remaining Bitcoin position could be exhausted by the end of September 2026.
Why sovereign selling still moves markets
Even relatively modest sovereign sales tend to draw outsized attention from on-chain observers because they represent one of the few instances of a national government actively managing a Bitcoin treasury built from real mining operations, rather than through acquisition or seizure. Bhutan's approach — steady, telegraphed, batch-based selling — has so far avoided the kind of market disruption a single large block sale might cause, but the eventual full exit of a sovereign holder is still a milestone worth tracking, both for what it signals about how governments manage crypto treasuries and for the modest but real supply pressure it has added to the market throughout 2026.
