Bhutan Just Showed Me How the King is Building a Crypto City | Jigdrel Singay, Yu Zheng, & Ivan Patriki

Bhutan Just Showed Me How the King is Building a Crypto City | Jigdrel Singay, Yu Zheng, & Ivan Patriki

From On The Margin by On The Margin

July 15, 2026 · 50 min

About this episode

The episode discusses Bhutan's ambitious project to create a crypto city, exploring its implications and the unique approach taken by the country.

Bhutan is going all-in on crypto, the city is called the Geluphy Mindfulness City. They mined their first Bitcoin in 2018, using clean hydropower, years before most governments knew what a blockchain was. Now the Himalayan kingdom of under a million people is building something no other country has attempted: a special administrative region roughly seven times the size of Singapore, with its own regulator, its own licensed bank, and a mandate to become the financial gateway for two billion people across South Asia.Jigdrel Singay sits on the board of the Gelephu Mindfulness City Authority (GMCA), the body building what it calls “two systems, one country” out of the Bhutanese lowlands bordering India. Yu Dong Zheng runs DK Bank, the only bank licensed to operate inside the zone, built from day one to hold fiat and crypto in the same account, something most “crypto-friendly” banks still won’t do.We cover:Why GMCA calls itself “two systems, one country,” and what makes it legally separate from the rest of Bhutan The “Hong Kong for China, Singapore for Southeast Asia” pitch, and why South Asia’s 2 billion people don’t have a financial hub yet Bhutan has been mining Bitcoin with…

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