The Royal Government of Bhutan sold $23 million worth of Bitcoin this week. Bhutan withdrew 201 BTC ($15 million) from its wallet on Thursday, according to Arkham data.
A day earlier, it also transferred 102 BTC ($7.9 million).
In early April alone, the government $40 million worth of BTC dumped. A closer look at the balance sheet of its portfolios showed that the government has intensified the sell-off in 2026. At the end of 2025, the monitored wallets will contain 6,000 BTC.
At the time of writing, the stock has fallen by almost half to 3,220 BTC. In short, 2,800 BTC were sold in the first quarter of 2026, which represents a value of more than $200 million at current market prices.
In fact, looking at peak holdings of 13,000 BTC in 2024, Bhutan has sold 75.23% of its reserves.
Broader BTC share trend by nation-states
The most intriguing thing about Bhutan’s situation is that the country has not received any inflows into its pockets. This suggested that it may have halted its mining operations.
In recent years, the country has leveraged its abundant hydropower to mine BTC, which has been strategically sold to finance other economic developments. It is unclear whether it will resume its BTC mining operations if the price moves higher.
Despite the sell-off in Bhutan, the amount of BTC held by countries has steadily increased from 515,000 BTC in October last year to 649,800 BTC in May 2026 – that’s a 26% increase in nation-state accumulation.
Yet the broader impact on the BTC price was still unclear. Anticipating the historical summer silence, overall demand dynamics still warned of a possible downturn.
According to CryptoQuant, demand in the Spot market has shrunk further while perpetual futures are rising. This setup, the analytics firm added, mirrored the 2022 pattern, which coincided with another decline for the BTC price.
If the trend repeats and the summer lull puts further pressure on Spot demand, it may take a little longer for BTC to convert the current bear market phase into an early bull market structure.
Final summary
- Bhutan sold another $23 million in BTC, extending the 2026 sell-off to +$200 million and dropping total holdings by 75% from the peak of 13,000 coins.
- This move is in stark contrast to a 26% increase in nation-state accumulation, despite the risk that BTC will fall further again.