Key Highlights
- Bhutan will launch a sovereign-backed gold token on Solana on December 17, 2025.
- The country currently holds 10,769 BTC, worth about $963 million in crypto reserves.
- Solana’s low fees and high throughput made it the chosen network for Bhutan’s gold token.
Bhutan is preparing to launch the world’s first sovereign-backed gold token on Solana, marking a rare integration of national reserves with public blockchain infrastructure. The announcement was made at Gelephu Mindfulness City in Bhutan, confirming the token’s debut on December 17, 2025, which happens to be the Bhutan National Day.
The initiative positions the country among the first nations to tokenize physical gold at the sovereign level, combining state-backed collateral with high-performance blockchain rails.
Bhutan selected Solana primarily due to performance. Solana processes over 2,400 transactions per second with fees near $0.00026, far surpassing Ethereum’s sub-15 TPS throughput and higher fee environment. Experts note that Solana’s proof-of-stake and proof-of-history design offers fast, deterministic finality, making it an appealing fit for a high-value, sovereign gold-backed token.
Bhutan’s crypto holdings
Bhutan has quietly become one of the most crypto-active sovereign entities. Public treasury data places the country 22nd globally among public institutions holding digital assets, including 10,769 BTC valued at roughly $970 million, according to CoinGecko.
These holdings account for 0.051% of Bitcoin’s total supply, underscoring Bhutan’s aggressive digital-asset strategy, which has expanded far beyond mining operations into long-term sovereign accumulation.
The rising market for gold-backed tokens
Gold-backed stablecoins have surged in popularity as investors seek inflation hedges and alternatives to dollar-collateralized stablecoins. Tokenized gold removes storage hurdles, enables fractional ownership, and plugs directly into DeFi for fast global settlement.
A Kraken report said leading products like Tether Gold (XAUT) and Paxos Gold (PAXG) boast market caps of hundreds of millions, but none carry sovereign guarantees. Bhutan’s launch introduces a new category: state-issued, state-backed tokenized gold.
Gold-backed tokens
The tokenized gold market has exceeded $3.16 billion in market cap, led by XAUT and PAXG, which together account for more than $3 billion in value and dominate daily trading volumes. Smaller products like Matrixdock Gold (XAUM) and Comtech Gold (CGO) remain niche, underscoring how liquidity and trust concentrate around the largest issuers.
Tokenized gold demand is accelerating as investors seek fractional, on-chain exposure. With markets like Singapore deploying fully backed, blockchain-settled models, tokenized gold is rapidly becoming a mainstream bridge to the $142 trillion global resources market.
With such a significant amount locked in the digital gold market, spectators will be watching closely, both for the token’s adoption and for whether other nations follow Bhutan’s lead in blending traditional reserves with next-generation financial infrastructure.
Also read: Coinbase Launches Native Solana DEX Trading
