The Kingdom of Bhutan is set to deploy and run a Sei Network validator in Q1, the latest addition to the country’s digital transformation push.
The validator will be spun up in a collaboration between the Sei Development Foundation and Druk Holding and Investments (DHI) technology division — the primary sovereign wealth fund and holding company of Bhutan.
Phuntsho Namgay, the head of DHI’s department of Innovation and technology, said the wealth fund plans to continue exploring other opportunities with the Sei Development Foundation as part of its digital transformation goals.
“This collaboration marks an exciting step toward strengthening Bhutan’s role in global blockchain innovation while unlocking new pathways for data valuation, scientific advancement, and financial technology.”
Validators are a critical component for proof-of-stake networks; they help secure the network, validate transactions and blocks, and can vote on protocol upgrades.
Projects in payments and tokenization could be next
Eleanor Davies, the science and innovation lead at Sei Development Foundation, said some of the other projects and collaborations with Bhutan on the horizon could include tokenization.
Related: How Bhutan is building a green Bitcoin economy from the ground up
“Our collaboration is a significant investment in national blockchain adoption, further expands Sei’s global validator footprint, and will set the stage for us to partner on innovative projects like payments, tokenization, and personal identification into the future,” she said.
Bhutan has quietly become a leader in crypto adoption in recent years. As part of its blockchain-based initiatives, its nearly 800,000 residents can verify their identities and access government services through a self-sovereign ID system powered by Ethereum.
The nation also has the fifth-largest stash of Bitcoin among countries, most of which has come from mining. Bitbo estimates that the kingdom holds around 11,286 coins, worth over $1 billion, some of which it has earmarked to help build its special administrative region, the Gelephu Mindfulness City.
Bhutan is not alone in validator ambition
A growing number of companies are also deciding to run validators.
The partially state-owned German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom launched validators on multiple blockchains, including Injective last February, Polygon in June 2023 and Celo in June 2021.
Meanwhile, Google Cloud became a central validator of the Cronos blockchain in November, joining a pool of 32 others on the Cronos Ethereum Virtual Machine protocol.
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