The South Asian country of Bhutan is migrating its self-sovereign ID system from Polygon to Ethereum, allowing its nearly 800,000 residents to verify their identities and access government services.
The integration with Ethereum has been completed, while the migration of all resident credentials is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2026, according to Ethereum Foundation President Aya Miyaguchi, who along with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin attended the launch ceremony with Bhutan’s Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay and Crown Prince, Jigme Namgyel Wangchuk.
Source: Aya Miyaguchi
“It is deeply inspiring to see a nation committed to providing its citizens with a self-sovereign identity,” Miyaguchi wrote to X on Monday, adding that the Ethereum integration was a world first.
“This milestone marks not just a national achievement, but a global step towards a more open and secure long-term digital future.”
Integrating a blockchain-based solution into a government’s national ID system has long been touted as a promising crypto use case, due to its immutability, transparency and privacy features, especially when zero-knowledge proofs are implemented.
Ethereum is Bhutan’s third blockchain national ID solution
Bhutan previously ran its national ID system on Polygon from August 2024 and on Hyperledger Indy before that. Brazil and Vietnam are among the few other countries that have partially integrated blockchain-based self-sovereign identity solutions to date.
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Source: Timor Kosters
Miyaguchi noted that Bhutan’s National Digital Identity and GovTech teams played a crucial role in the Ethereum integration, as did other contributors in the Bhutanese crypto community.
Bhutan has stacked Bitcoin
Bhutan – a country that measures national progress by gross national happiness – has quietly become a leader in crypto adoption in recent years. It is currently the fifth largest nation-state to own Bitcoin, having amassed its assets through mining using renewable energy at its Himalayan hydroelectric dams.
It currently holds 11,286 Bitcoin worth $1.31 billion, trailing only the US, China, Britain and Ukraine, BitBo’s Bitcoin Treasuries data shows.
Bhutan may also be exploring other crypto initiatives after meeting former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao in late September – although details of their discussions were not disclosed.
Pay in #BNB with @Binance Pay in Bhutan🇧🇹, nice and easy. 😏pic.twitter.com/B5p3YolJjJ
— CZ 🔶BNB (@cz_binance) September 29, 2025
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