---
title: Bhutan Has Written Digital Assets Into the Founding Plan of a New City
description: Gelephu Mindfulness City has a single financial regulator, company law adopted from Singapore, a gold-backed token and a bitcoin treasury mined from surplus hydropower.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
updated: 2026-07-30T13:22:36.538Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/bhutan-gelephu-digital-assets-founding-plan
categories: Politics
content_type: News
region: Asia Pacific
publication: Sovereign Magazine
access: members
schema_type: Article
---

The Special Administrative Region taking shape in southern Bhutan has been assembling the working parts of a financial centre: a legal code, a regulator, a currency instrument and a treasury, each of them already named and published.

The newest piece landed on 30 July, when Gelephu Mindfulness City said it had appointed 3iQ Corp., a digital asset manager, to run a dedicated mandate backed by part of the city's bitcoin holdings. It is the first institutional manager the city has named, and on its own it is a modest arrangement. Set against what the SAR has already put in place, it is the point at which the plan starts handling other people's money.

## One office licenses every financial activity in the city

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