Bhutan migrates national digital ID to Ethereum

The Kingdom of Bhutan is gradually migrating its National Digital Identity (NDI) platform to the Ethereum blockchain, marking a landmark step in the digital transformation agenda for this Himalayan ￰0￱ move makes Bhutan the first country to base its national identity system on a public blockchain, thereby enhancing transparency, trust, and citizen control over their personal ￰1￱ migration from NDI to Ethereum is at the core of Bhutan’s vision to create a decentralized, secure, and self-sovereign digital ￰2￱ integration will enable the NDI to generate verifiable credentials, sign digital documents, and prove identity natively on Ethereum’s public, distributed ￰3￱ building its core identity system on Ethereum, Bhutan aims to reduce its reliance on centralized databases, a common vulnerability to hacking, manipulation, and data ￰4￱ philosophy for the nation is in sync with India’s “technology with values” philosophy, which encourages integrity and ethics, inclusion, and empowerment through ￰5￱ launch of Bhutan’s National Digital Identity on Ethereum marks a significant milestone in establishing the country as a leader in the realm of digital government, according to Prime Minister Lyonchen Tshering ￰6￱ said that by utilizing Ethereum’s globally distributed and decentralized infrastructure, they aimed to enhance the security, transparency, and availability of Bhutan’s critical ￰7￱ added that this milestone underscored their vision of creating an interoperable and user-owned identity system, one that connects Bhutan to global ecosystems while upholding His Majesty the King’s vision of a secure, inclusive, and digitally empowered ￰8￱ after the 2023 election, Bhutan’s National Digital Identity (NDI) was established, the first and only national system worldwide to offer self-sovereign identity (SSI) at a population-wide ￰9￱ Royal Highness also emerged as the country’s first digital citizen during the launch, highlighting Bhutan’s leadership in people-centered digital ￰10￱ gains global recognition through blockchain collaboration Aya Miyaguchi, the president of the Ethereum Foundation , praised Bhutan’s move as a way blockchain could be employed to create open and inclusive systems that work for citizens — and not just ￰11￱ Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, also praised the initiative, stating that decentralized digital identity is a fundamental building block for the future of the internet and that he is pleased to see innovative teams, such as uPort, developing self-sovereign ￰12￱ added that Bhutan’s adoption of an open architecture built on Ethereum demonstrated the purpose behind creating the platform — to drive meaningful and positive change through open-source ￰13￱ the outset, Bhutan has sought to establish a transparent network that serves its citizens as well as those beyond its ￰14￱ in a public blockchain enables the Government of Bhutan to allow its citizens to verify their credentials from anywhere in the world, while preserving privacy and ￰15￱ differs from many remote identification systems based on opaque, centralized infrastructure controlled by governments or the private ￰16￱ government aims to migrate the entire NDI platform onto Ethereum by early ￰17￱ it’s fully rolled out, Bhutanese citizens will be able to prove certain things about themselves without disclosing their personal information, as cryptographic proofs are used instead of the usual ID ￰18￱ innovation through blockchain Besides its national identity system, the country is studying more extensive uses of blockchain technology in various aspects of governance and social ￰19￱ 2025, the nation also hosted a decentralized applications (dApp) hackathon in Paro, with a partnership from the Ethereum ￰20￱ event was attended by over 70 developers who worked on creating digital tools based on Bhutan’s identity ￰21￱ projects included verifying land records, implementing transparent citizen feedback systems, and tracking provenance for locally made products.

Bhutan’s NiaoDai Interchain has also formed a global partnership with iDen2, a decentralized identity protocol, to jointly develop Phenix—a modular identity solution for use ￰22￱ partnership will aim to combine Bhutan’s real-world experience in deploying a national digital identity with the iDen2 open-source technology, enabling other countries and organizations to replicate Bhutan’s ￰23￱ seen where it ￰24￱ in Cryptopolitan Research and reach crypto’s sharpest investors and builders.