Does Venezuela really secretly hold $60 billion worth of Bitcoin? Industry insiders analyze this rumor in depth

【Crypto Rhythm】Recently, a big news has been circulating in the crypto world: the Venezuelan government secretly stockpiled Bitcoin worth $60 billion. It sounds explosive, but the truth might not be that simple.

Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, an industry insider who has been involved in Bitcoin mining in Venezuela for a long time, recently spoke out, stating that these claims are mostly guesses and second-hand information piled together, with no reliable on-chain evidence to support them.

These rumors mainly come from three sources: the 2018 large-scale gold trading rumor in Venezuela turning into Bitcoin, some oil revenues settled in cryptocurrencies, and the government confiscating mining machines to mine themselves. All of these seem somewhat possible, but Mauricio pointed out—there’s no credible evidence that the $2.7 billion worth of gold traded in 2018 was converted into Bitcoin. The key figure, Alex Saab, was detained by the U.S. in 2020 and only released in a prisoner exchange agreement in 2023. During this period, tracking any fund flows was impossible.

Even more concerning, if Venezuela truly holds $10-20 billion in BTC, it doesn’t match their official reserve claim of $9.9 billion publicly announced by the central bank. More importantly, to this day, no on-chain address can reliably be linked to Saab or the Venezuelan government.

Even if they did receive cryptocurrency income, how corrupt is this country? The SUNACRIP (National Cryptocurrency Regulatory Agency) corruption case exposed in 2023 says it all—between 2020 and 2023, officials embezzled about $17.6 billion through black market oil trading. Do you think crypto assets’ proceeds can safely land in the national treasury? Clearly, they have been privately embezzled.

As for the claim of large-scale confiscation of mining machines for self-mining, Mauricio outright denied it. Venezuela has long suffered from power shortages, dilapidated infrastructure, and a large exodus of technical personnel. Even core enterprises like the state oil company PDVSA are poorly managed. How could they possibly maintain stable large-scale Bitcoin mining farms? They simply don’t have the conditions.

In summary: Venezuela definitely has Bitcoin, but these coins are hardly in the hands of the regime.