Venezuela holds 240 bitcoins, and analysts estimate that its "shadow reserve" of bitcoins may exceed 600,000.
According to PANews on January 5th, data from Bitcoin Treasuries shows that Venezuela has held 240 Bitcoins since December 31, 2022, with a current balance of approximately $22.33 million. Previously, in May 2024, the Venezuelan government banned Bitcoin mining citing energy load and power supply stability; in September 2024, opposition leader Maria Corinna Machado proposed including Bitcoin in the national reserve assets. Meanwhile, the government-led national digital currency, the Petro, ceased circulation in January 2024.
However, other analysts estimate that Venezuela has been "laundering" assets into Bitcoin since 2018 through gold swaps and oil settlements in USDT, estimating its holdings at approximately 600,000 BTC, worth between $56 billion and $67 billion. Some sources indicate that in 2018, approximately $2 billion worth of gold was used to purchase about 400,000 BTC at an average price of $5,000, equivalent to approximately $3.6 billion at current prices. This scale is close to the holdings of MicroStrategy and BlackRock. If the US Department of Justice seizes and freezes these assets for an extended period, it could create a supply lock-in and short-term volatility, making rapid liquidation unlikely.
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