Opinion: "Venezuela's $60 billion Bitcoin holdings" claim lacks supporting evidence

On January 8, recent market rumors claimed that the Venezuelan government might secretly hold Bitcoin worth up to $60 billion. However, Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, co-founder of Ledn, who has lived in Venezuela and been engaged in Bitcoin mining for a long time, stated that these claims are mostly based on speculation and second-hand information, lacking credible on-chain evidence. The three main sources of these rumors are: 1) a large-scale gold sale in Venezuela in 2018 exchanged for Bitcoin; 2) some oil revenues settled in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies; 3) government confiscation or theft of mining equipment for mining purposes. Mauricio acknowledged that Venezuela did indeed receive cryptocurrency in some oil transactions and that there have been cases of government confiscation of mining equipment, but he emphasized that there is no credible evidence to support the claim that the approximately $2.7 billion worth of gold sold in 2018 was converted into Bitcoin. The key figure involved in that transaction, current Minister of Industry and National Production Alex Saab, was detained by the U.S. from 2020 to 2023 and was released at the end of 2023 under a prisoner exchange agreement. If the rumors are true and he controls Bitcoin worth $10–20 billion, it would be inconsistent with the official reserves disclosed by the Central Bank of Venezuela at around $9.9 billion at that time, and no on-chain address has ever been reliably linked to Saab or the Venezuelan state. Furthermore, even if the Venezuelan regime did obtain cryptocurrency revenues, the highly corrupt system makes it almost impossible for these funds to enter the national treasury. Mauricio cited the SUNACRIP (National Cryptocurrency Regulatory Agency) corruption scandal exposed in 2023, pointing out that between 2020 and 2023, officials embezzled about $17.6 billion through illegal oil transactions, and crypto asset proceeds were likely similarly embezzled by individuals. Regarding the claim of “large-scale mining using confiscated equipment,” Mauricio also dismisses it. He pointed out that Venezuela has long faced severe power shortages, aging infrastructure, and a massive brain drain of technical personnel. The country’s core assets, such as the state oil company PDVSA, are already difficult to operate effectively, let alone maintain stable large-scale Bitcoin mining operations. “Venezuela does have Bitcoin, but they are not in the hands of the regime.”