Is Venezuela Really Hoarding $60 Billion in Bitcoin? An Industry Insider Says No

The Controversy That’s Splitting the Crypto Community

A bombshell report dropped last weekend claiming that Venezuela has secretly accumulated approximately $60 billion worth of Bitcoin. The allegation, published by Project Brazen, suggested that Nicolas Maduro’s government acquired these digital assets through three channels: gold swaps orchestrated by then-Interior Minister Alex Saab in 2018, Bitcoin-denominated oil revenue payments, and confiscated mining equipment from local miners. On the surface, it sounds plausible—after all, years of international sanctions have locked Venezuela out of traditional financial systems, making cryptocurrencies an attractive workaround.

The Numbers Don’t Add Up

But here’s where things get interesting. According to Bitcointreasuries data, Venezuela’s official Bitcoin holdings total just 240 BTC—worth roughly $22 million. For context, the US government sits on 328,372 BTC valued at approximately $30 billion. The $60 billion figure would make Venezuela one of the world’s largest Bitcoin holders, yet there’s virtually no public evidence supporting this claim.

A Venezuela Native Calls BS

Enter Mauricio di Bartolomeo, co-founder of cryptocurrency lending platform Ledn. Having grown up in Venezuela and with family roots in the country’s crypto mining scene since 2014, Bartolomeo is uniquely positioned to weigh in on these allegations. His verdict? He’s not buying it. “It doesn’t match anything in the public records,” Bartolomeo stated flatly. “There’s so much corruption, embezzlement, and missing money in Venezuela that I don’t believe a significant amount could have accumulated.”

Bartolomeo’s skepticism isn’t theoretical—it’s grounded in lived experience. His own family’s mining rigs were seized by government authorities in 2018. The equipment wasn’t returned until five years later, and when it came back, it was completely worn out from heavy use, suggesting the government had been running the machines themselves. If the state had truly been quietly accumulating Bitcoin on this scale, Bartolomeo reasons, the infrastructure would look very different from what actually happened.

The Real Crypto Story in Venezuela

What’s actually happening in Venezuela tells a different story. Stablecoins have become far more prevalent than Bitcoin as ordinary Venezuelans navigate hyperinflation. Families are using dollar-pegged tokens like USDC and Tether to send remittances across borders because they offer better exchange rates than traditional money transfers. This tells us what Venezuelan citizens actually need from crypto—stability, not speculation.

The Verification Problem

Here’s the fundamental challenge: because blockchain is decentralized and pseudonymous, it’s nearly impossible to definitively prove who holds what. If Venezuela does have a hidden Bitcoin stash, they could theoretically keep it under wraps indefinitely. But the burden of proof falls on those making the extraordinary claim, and so far, no smoking gun has emerged.

For now, the mainstream crypto community remains cautious. While the $60 billion narrative makes for compelling reading, industry veterans like Bartolomeo are pointing out that the evidence simply isn’t there. Until something concrete surfaces, this “shadow reserve” story will remain what it is: intriguing speculation, nothing more.