Bhutan launches its sovereign gold-backed token TER on Solana, deepening its national blockchain strategy.

Bhutan has announced the issuance of TER, a sovereign-backed gold-pledged token, on the Solana blockchain. The issuance is spearheaded by the Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC), with each token representing a physical gold reserve. While the token aims to serve specific use cases for GMC, industry insiders point out that this move further demonstrates Bhutan's long-term vision of integrating with the stablecoin ecosystem and using gold as a neutral asset-backed token. Decrypt's DK Bank (Bhutan's first central bank-regulated digital bank) will serve as the sole distributor and custodian of TER; the digital asset platform Matrixdock will provide the tokenization infrastructure. GMC stated that issuing the gold-pledged token is part of promoting "responsible innovation" and continuing Bhutan's transparent and sustainable values. TER will initially be available for subscription through DK Bank and will utilize institutional-grade custody. Analysts believe that gold may only be the beginning; Bhutan may explore tokenization paths for silver, rare stones, and even cultural and environmental assets in the future to realize resource value without actual mining. In recent years, Bhutan has been deepening its blockchain strategy: it began Bitcoin mining in 2019, supported by hydropower; it currently holds 5,984 BTC, ranking seventh among global sovereign institutions. GMC previously announced that it would include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and BNB in ​​its strategic reserves; Bhutan has also partnered with Binance Pay to expand encrypted payments and will integrate its national digital identity system with Ethereum this year, expecting to provide over 800,000 citizens with cryptographically verifiable identity credentials by 2026. (decrypt)