The Royal Government of Bhutan has transferred 973 BTC, valued at approximately $72.32 million, to several addresses, according to data from Arkham Intelligence.

HAS BHUTAN STOPPED MINING BITCOIN?

Bhutan just moved another $44.44M BTC out of its accounts. Bhutan has moved $72.3M BTC out of its addresses in the past 24 hours.

Bhutan's last >$100K BTC inflow was over 1 year ago. Has Bhutan stopped mining Bitcoin? https://t.co/IhcGDMRH0t pic.twitter.com/qvQuKXXoaU

— Arkham (@arkham) March 18, 2026

On March 17 and 18, Bhutan's authorities transferred $27.8 million and $44.44 million in Bitcoin to unknown addresses, respectively. These transactions were made from the wallets of Druk Holding and Investments, the sovereign fund managing the country's cryptocurrency reserves.

Crypto assets worth approximately $1.52 million were sent to QCP Capital, a platform specializing in institutional trading.

Earlier this month, the kingdom withdrew about $11.85 million from its main address to a new account created in February. This account had previously received 184 BTC from the government, which were then transferred to another wallet.

According to Arkham, Bhutan regularly sells digital assets in batches of $5-10 million. Since the beginning of the year, the country has realized coins worth over $110 million.

Bhutan's Reserves Dwindle

At the time of writing, Druk Holding manages 4,453 BTC, valued at around $326 million. This is three times less than the peak in October when the country held over 13,000 BTC.

Source: Arkham.

Bhutan has been accumulating Bitcoin primarily through mining powered by cheap hydroelectric energy. The country has been mining the first cryptocurrency since 2019.

Following the recent halving, profitability has decreased due to rising costs. Arkham suggested that the kingdom may have stopped mining digital assets, as indicated by the lack of incoming transfers exceeding $100,000—none have been observed for over a year.

Institutional Appetite Grows

Bhutan's sales coincide with a resurgence of institutional demand for Bitcoin in the U.S. Spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have recorded their seventh consecutive day of inflows—the longest positive streak since October 2025.

As of March 17, these instruments attracted $199.3 million, with most coming from BlackRock's product—IBIT. Over the past seven trading days, Bitcoin ETFs have seen inflows of $1.17 billion.

Source: SoSoValue.

“Institutional confidence has returned. Seven days of consecutive inflows and nearly $1 billion over six of them speak for themselves: these are not reactive purchases, but deliberate allocations from structures that do not move quickly or act recklessly,” noted BTC Markets analyst Rachel Lucas.

According to her, the demand is structural: buyers are following a long-term strategy rather than trading on news. This helps digital gold maintain its price range after a 15% increase amid geopolitical uncertainty.

Spot Ethereum ETFs attracted $138.2 million. ETFs based on Solana and XRP received $17.8 million and $4.6 million, respectively.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $72,900. Over the past day, the asset's price has dropped by 1.6%.

Hourly chart of BTC/USDT on Binance. Source: TradingView.

As a reminder, in March, investment bank Citigroup lowered its annual price forecast for the first cryptocurrency from $143,000 to $112,000.