Bhutan’s Solana-Powered Gold Token TER Launches - A Sovereign Digital Asset Play

Forget central bank digital currencies gathering dust in research papers. The Kingdom of Bhutan just deployed a live, sovereign-backed digital asset—and they built it on Solana.

The Himalayan nation's new TER token represents physical gold reserves, marking one of the first state-level digital commodity plays to hit a major public blockchain. It bypasses the traditional financial plumbing entirely, letting users hold and transfer tokenized bullion with the speed of a meme coin.

Why This Isn't Just Another Stablecoin

Most gold-backed tokens act as private-sector IOUs. TER is different—it's a direct sovereign issuance. The Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan backs each token, effectively making the nation's gold reserves programmable and tradeable 24/7 on a global ledger. It turns a vaulted asset into a liquid, digital tool.

The Solana Choice Speaks Volumes

Choosing Solana over other chains wasn't an accident. The network's low fees and high throughput make micro-transactions in gold economically feasible—something that crumbles under Ethereum's gas fees or drags on slower chains. Bhutan isn't just digitizing gold; they're optimizing for utility.

A Blueprint for Other Nations?

Smaller economies with substantial natural resources or strategic reserves are watching. Tokenizing national assets on a public blockchain creates a new form of sovereign financial leverage—one that operates outside legacy corridors of power and, perhaps most appealingly, outside the watchful eye of credit rating agencies.

Of course, Wall Street veterans will scoff, calling it a gimmick. They're the same experts who said Bitcoin would never surpass a dollar while quietly building their own digital asset divisions. Bhutan's move might look like a niche experiment, but it's a stark signal: the race to tokenize real-world assets isn't led by banks anymore. It's being led by nations—and they're building on-chain.

Gelephu Mindfulness City launches digital gold

The launch of a tokenized version of gold reiterates Bhutan’s vision for Gelephu Mindfulness City, which the government hopes will attract global capital from crypto firms. The special administrative region has a distinct regulatory flexibility from the broader kingdom’s jurisdiction, much like how China uses Hong Kong as a crypto sandbox.

Matrixdock, a digital asset financial services platform, will provide the tokenization framework under a Financial Services Licence granted by the Gelephu Mindfulness City Authority in September. 

We are demonstrating how a crypto-friendly city can welcome responsible innovation while staying rooted in Bhutan’s values of transparency, sustainability, and long-term stewardship.

Jigdrel Singay, a member of the Gelephu Mindfulness City board.

The launch of TER adds to Bhutan’s digital asset ambitions of Bitcoin treasuries and crypto mining. According to data from the crypto analytics firm Arkham, the Royal Kingdom holds Bitcoins worth $540 million, approximately 15% of its nominal projected gross domestic product in 2025.

Bhutan did not accumulate its digital holdings through asset seizures or major market purchases like the West, but the kingdom began building large-scale mining operations in 2020 using its abundant hydropower resources. 

“For Bhutan, it was quite obvious in a lot of ways,” said Ujjwal Deep Dahal, chief executive of the sovereign wealth fund Druk Holding and Investments, which oversaw the mining program. “We kind of look at bitcoin as a store of value, similar to gold.”

Still, the country’s embrace of digital assets hasn’t been enough to revive the numbers its tourism-dependent economy was raising. Tourism in Bhutan was heavily affected by the pandemic, and according to the Wall Street Journal, around 10% of its population has left the country over the past 5 years to seek better wages abroad. 

“We are poor. Many people refer to Bhutan and Bhutanese as the happiest country in the world. We are not,” Former prime minister Dr. Lotay Tshering told WSJ.

About 70% of Bhutan’s roughly 38,000-square-kilometre territory is blanketed by forest, a level of protection safeguarded by the constitution, which mandates that national forest cover must never fall below 60%. 

The country’s new Gelephu Mindfulness City is a 4,000-square-kilometre special zone being constructed along the southern border, more than five times the size of Singapore.

Regional momentum builds on Kyrgyzstan’s Gold backed USDKG

Just days before Bhutan unveiled TER, Cryptopolitan reported that the Kyrgyz Republic launched a gold-backed stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the greenback named USDKG, one of Central Asia’s first state-supervised digital token programs.

The issuer, OJSC VIRTUAL Asset Issuer, operates under the Ministry of Finance and within the framework of Kyrgyzstan’s 2022 Law on Virtual Assets. USDKG has an initial supply of $50 million worth of tokens, and physical gold reserves fully back each unit. 

The December 1 launch ceremony in Bishkek was attended by President Sadyr Japarov, Finance Minister Almaz Baketaev, and Biibolot Mamytov, the CEO of the project’s operator, Gold Dollar. The dignitaries pressed a symbolic “Launch Issuance” button to activate USDKG’s circulation.

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