Analysts remain skeptical about whether Venezuela holds 600,000 BTC

BlockBeats News, January 6, the recent actions taken by the United States against Venezuelan President Maduro have once again sparked external discussions about whether Venezuela holds "undisclosed Bitcoin reserves." Investigative journalist Bradley Hope claims that the Venezuelan government may have converted gold into Bitcoin over the years, with a potential scale of up to 600,000 BTC, valued at approximately $60 billion.

However, several mainstream blockchain analytics institutions have yet to find any on-chain evidence supporting this claim. The 600,000 BTC figure cited by Hope is not based on on-chain data, but rather a mathematical estimate derived from the scale of Venezuela's gold sales since 2018.

Whale co-founder Frank Weert stated that if Venezuela truly held such a large amount of Bitcoin, it would be almost impossible to completely evade tracking by blockchain analytics firms, and such claims would require "very strong evidence."

Nevertheless, analysts point out that Venezuela has indeed long attempted to use cryptocurrencies. The country once launched the oil-backed national digital currency Petro and has used crypto payments in energy and cross-border transactions. Due to high inflation of the local currency, Venezuela ranked among the top 20 in global cryptocurrency adoption in 2025.

Currently, the official holdings of crypto assets by Venezuela remain highly opaque. Institutions including Arkham, Chainalysis, and Elliptic have not confirmed the existence of any large-scale Bitcoin wallets directly linked to the government. Analysts believe that even if such assets exist, they may be highly concealed through mixers, cross-chain transactions, and offshore OTC channels.