Green cryptocurrencies

Bhutan is exploring ways to mine and leverage green cryptocurrencies using hydropower to boost its economy and create jobs to reduce brain drain.

• Green cryptocurrencies are digital currencies mined using clean energy resources such as wind, hydro or solar power instead of fossil fuel.

• Sandwiched between Asian giants India and China, Bhutan has earned millions of dollars in recent years by investing in some of the world’s most popular cryptocurrencies and used some of its profit to pay government salaries for two years.

• Bhutan is famed for its Gross National Happiness (GNH) index, an economic gauge that incorporates factors ignored by the usual measures of gross domestic product, such as recreation, emotional well-being and sustainability.