Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) in Bhutan is offering an accelerated licensing pathway for crypto and fintech companies already regulated in hubs such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi, as the Himalayan territory pushes to position itself as a new South Asian financial center.
The framework allows qualified companies to incorporate, obtain authorization from local regulators and open a corporate bank account through a coordinated process tied to DK Bank, GMC’s official banking partner, according to a Tuesday release shared with Cointelegraph.
The move reflects growing competition among emerging jurisdictions seeking to attract crypto firms with streamlined regulation, banking access and tax incentives, as global regulators tighten oversight and warn against regulatory arbitrage.
DK Bank will still run standard Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks, but Jigdrel Singay, a GMC board member and digital assets and fintech lead, told Cointelegraph that companies that clear the licensing process are expected to gain access to banking services through the coordinated framework.
Singay stressed that the system is not a passport for offshore licences and that firms must be authorized under GMC’s own rules.
Existing approvals in other hubs mainly serve to streamline due diligence and cut down on duplicated documentation, he said, adding that regulatory standards and ongoing supervision remain under GMC’s control rather than being outsourced to foreign regulators, unlike the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) framework, which currently allows licensed firms to operate across the bloc.
Tax incentives and Bitcoin reserves underpin GMC’s pitch
Tax and incentives are another pillar of the pitch. GMC offers targeted 0% corporate tax for priority sectors depending on investment levels, a territorial tax system broadly aligned with Singapore and Hong Kong, and exemptions on capital gains, dividends and inheritance, according to the release.
GMC’s Bitcoin Pledge. Source: GMC
Foreign employees can qualify for income tax breaks through 2030, and Singay said the aim is to encourage “real” operations and job creation rather than structures set up primarily to shift profits for tax purposes.
The project is underwritten, at least in part, by Bitcoin ($BTC). Bhutan announced a “Bitcoin Development Pledge” in late 2025, committing up to 10,000 $BTC from sovereign reserves to support GMC’s long-term build-out, with officials emphasizing at the time that the assets would be held as a strategic reserve rather than sold.
This year, however, blockchain analytics firms pointed to a series of large $BTC outflows linked to Bhutan, suggesting hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of potential sales, though those analyses are based on address-tagging and transaction heuristics that are not definitive.
Singay said reports of Bitcoin sales related to GMC were “incorrect” and said $BTC remains pledged as part of the city’s strategic reserves.
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