Gelephu Mindfulness City has handed part of its bitcoin to an outside manager. The Canadian firm 3iQ took the mandate in a joint announcement on July 30. Neither side put a number on it. No tranche size, no custody arrangement, no word on whether the coins can be lent. The omission matters here, because the Bhutan bitcoin treasury behind the deal is the worst counted sovereign stack in the market.
3iQ chief executive Pascal St-Jean said the firm would put Bhutan's capital to work responsibly and transparently. Board director Jigdrel Singay called the firm a founding institutional partner.
The backing promise was 10,000 BTC
Bhutan committed up to 10,000 bitcoin to the Gelephu project in December 2025, close to a billion dollars at the price of the day. The pitch: the reserve would underwrite the new city without selling a coin. Eight months on, a manager runs a slice of it and the total remains unclear. This is no corporate vehicle that raises capital to buy coins on the open market. The coins already existed, in theory.
Sovereign bitcoin ran as a theme all year, from the US reserve moving under an agency called ARMA to smaller states unwinding quietly. Bhutan is the only one with a city attached.
Three public dashboards, three answers
I pulled the main public treasury trackers on Sunday night. No two agree. BitcoinTreasuries.net had Bhutan at 4,973 BTC, about $319 million, dated July 12. CoinGecko's government page had 10,769 BTC, last balance change August 6, 2025. Bitbo showed 11,286 BTC as of July 22, 2025. All three mark the coins near current prices. One has touched the count in the past year.
| Source | BTC | Balance dated |
|---|---|---|
| Bitbo | 11,286 | Jul 22, 2025 |
| CoinGecko | 10,769 | Aug 6, 2025 |
| BitcoinTreasuries.net | 4,973 | Jul 12, 2026 |
| Arkham (via CoinDesk) | 3,121 | May 16, 2026 |
The gap between the highest and lowest dashboard comes to 6,313 BTC. That spread alone exceeds half the pledge Gelephu rests on.
Arkham counted 3,121 in May
On-chain labelling tells the harsher version. Arkham Intelligence, whose labels have traced other portfolios through steep drawdowns, tracked the Bhutan bitcoin treasury falling from roughly 13,000 BTC in October 2024 to 3,121 BTC by mid-May, with more than $230 million leaving the wallets during 2026. Druk Holding and Investments chief executive Ujjwal Deep Dahal answered that with a single line in May: "I don't recall the last time we sold any BTC." Arkham says its Bhutan labels came out of its own models and never got confirmation from any ministry.
Hydropower mining built the stack, and Arkham puts daily output at roughly 26 BTC in 2023 against 8.6 by late 2024. Miners elsewhere spent this year selling production to fund AI hosting, while some governments shut mining down by decree.
The manager exists and the mandate exists. The denominator is a guess. 3iQ will see the balance it receives, and it says it plans local operations and staff training in Gelephu, not plain custody. Everyone outside the deal reads the Bhutan bitcoin treasury four ways depending on the dashboard they open, and nobody has scheduled the disclosure that would settle it.
