Venezuela rumored to hold $60B Bitcoin ‘shadow reserve’
When Bitcoin was first launched in 2009, many investors dismissed the currency as a fringe concept and even as a scam. (Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s former right-hand man at Berkshire Hathaway, called it “stupid and evil.”) But the asset’s value has risen dramatically in recent years, and President Donald Trump described the currency as “digital gold” after signing an executive order to create a strategic reserve of bitcoin last January. Now, reports claim that Venezuela has bought “digital gold,” as it holds a “shadow reserve” nearly double that of the United States.
Digital publication Project Brazen reported on Saturday that Venezuela could own an estimated $60 billion worth of bitcoin. Additional intelligence reports claim that ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his associates amassed bitcoin through three channels: a gold swap overseen by Venezuelan Interior Minister Alex Saab in 2018, pricing oil revenues in bitcoin, and by seizing cryptocurrency mining equipment from miners in the country.
Sanctions have blocked the country’s access to financial markets for years, and experts claim they may have motivated Venezuelan leaders to invest in cryptocurrencies to get past the barrier.
Bitcointreasuries.net estimates Venezuela’s holdings at 240 bitcoins, worth approximately $22 million. The site obtained data from 2022 Forbes An article citing research conducted by a blockchain analytics company. This total is a far cry from the estimated US holdings of 328,372, which are currently worth $30 billion, although this claim puts Venezuela’s holdings at nearly double the United States and one of the largest holders of Bitcoin globally.
Some raise their eyebrows
As expected, claims of Venezuelan shadow bitcoin holdings have raised skeptics, including the co-founder of digital asset financial services firm Ledn, Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, who grew up in Venezuela and whose family has been mining cryptocurrencies there since 2014.
Di Bartolomeo did not find any credibility in any of the three alleged sources of Bitcoin income: gold swaps, oil swaps, or mining equipment seizures. “This to me is inconsistent with anything in the public record,” Di Bartolomeo said. luck. “There is so much corruption, embezzlement and missing money that I don’t think any meaningful amount could have accumulated.”
He outlined his full argument in a Coindesk op-ed titled “Don’t Hold Your Breath for Venezuelan Bitcoin.” Although he noted that his family’s cryptocurrency mining materials were confiscated by the government in 2018 and returned five years later in a dilapidated condition, indicating extensive use of the equipment.
Di Bartolomeo says the popularity of stablecoins has increased in Venezuela amid rampant inflation. Many Venezuelans send remittances to their families using stablecoins, as the currency has a better exchange rate differential than liquid cash.
Claim effect
It is almost impossible to track how much cryptocurrency is held by the Venezuelan government, due to the decentralized and confidential properties of the asset. However, if true, these claims could potentially reshape global Bitcoin markets.
While most of the U.S. government’s cryptocurrency holdings have been amassed through law enforcement seizures, the emergence of cryptocurrencies as a state-controlled asset entered the mainstream last year after President Trump signed an executive order to create a national bitcoin reserve to bolster the United States’ position in the digital asset, at no cost to taxpayers.
Now that the United States is in de facto control of Venezuela, with vague statements from Trump that the United States will “run” the country, it is unclear what will happen to any existing Bitcoin reserves. Whether this claim is real or fake, it demonstrates the growing geopolitical importance of the currency and the Trump administration’s willingness to boost its interest in the digital asset industry.
2026-01-07 17:39:00
