On January 3rd, in the East 8th Time Zone, the price of Bitcoin collectively surged across multiple leading global trading platforms, reaching a peak of $110,000 during the day, with the total market capitalization briefly approaching $2.1 trillion, bringing it close to the market value range of some traditional blue-chip stocks in the global asset rankings. This breakthrough is not an isolated event but rather the result of the interplay between the expansion of the U.S. spot ETF, global macro liquidity repricing, and the fiscal and foreign exchange reserve pressures faced by multiple countries. The boundaries between traditional finance and the crypto world are being rewritten, from the product architecture on Wall Street to sovereign asset allocation in emerging markets, and the narratives of retail and institutional players are all being rearranged around Bitcoin's $110,000 coordinate system, reshaping their risks and opportunities.

Wall Street's BTC Feast and the Discrepancy in Sovereign Perspectives

As Bitcoin continues to surge during U.S. stock trading hours, the perspectives of Wall Street and various national finance departments are showing a clear discrepancy. On one hand, new products centered around the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF have recorded daily net inflows of tens of billions of dollars within less than a year, with leading products managing over hundreds of billions of dollars in just a few months, a speed of expansion that is extremely rare in the history of traditional ETFs. Asset management companies are rapidly packaging Bitcoin into pension funds, family offices, and high-net-worth accounts by "financializing," standardizing, and custodializing it, forming the Wall Street narrative of "BTC = new high-β tech asset." On the other hand, most sovereign nations' fiscal and central bank systems remain cautious or even defensive towards Bitcoin, with very few publicly disclosing cases of including it in official foreign exchange reserves, often remaining within the framework of "regulatory objects" rather than "reserve assets."

This discrepancy primarily stems from differences in institutional objectives. The underlying logic of Wall Street is maximizing management scale and fee income; as long as there is a compliant structure and clearing custody arrangement, whether the asset itself has sovereign currency status is not a core issue. Sovereign entities, however, need to consider currency issuance rights, capital project management, financial stability, and social expectation management. The extreme volatility, cross-border flow, and decentralized nature of Bitcoin inherently create tension with the traditional foreign exchange reserve standards of "low volatility, high liquidity, and accountable credit." Meanwhile, with the dollar still holding global settlement and clearing hegemony, most countries are more inclined in the short term to pursue gradual "de-dollarization" through increasing gold holdings, optimizing bond duration structures, and diversifying trade settlement currencies, rather than hastily adopting a highly volatile crypto asset as an official "new anchor." However, as Bitcoin's market capitalization continues to rise and its holding structure becomes increasingly "institutionalized," sovereign perspectives can hardly ignore the potential role of this asset in cross-cycle wealth preservation and political hedging.

From Gold to BTC: Venezuela's Extreme Case

Among all the potential national samples that could be pushed to the forefront, Venezuela is undoubtedly the most dramatic. The country has experienced hyperinflation, sovereign debt defaults, and multiple currency revaluations over the past decade, causing its traditional currency to almost lose its value storage and accounting functions. To hedge against the risks of U.S. sanctions and its own credit collapse, the Venezuelan government has been reported by multiple media outlets since the mid-2010s to have massively utilized its gold reserves for overseas pledging, monetization, and collateral financing, with hundreds of tons of gold once transported to London and the Middle East as a "last chip" to bypass financial sanctions.

Bitcoin entered the scene against the backdrop of escalating sanctions and liquidity crises. Due to strict domestic foreign exchange controls and severe distortions in the official exchange rate, a large amount of private capital began to convert oil revenues and local cash flows into Bitcoin through over-the-counter trading and cross-border transfers, then transferring it to overseas accounts to bypass the monitoring of traditional banking systems. Public data shows that the peer-to-peer BTC trading volume in Venezuela surged to global prominence during certain peaks of sanctions and inflation shocks, far exceeding its GDP's share in the world economy. This process, while primarily driven by private activities, inevitably intertwines with the internal power networks of the government, the cash flows of state-owned oil companies, and the gray exchange systems, forming a shadow channel of "Bitcoin–Oil–Dollar" that is difficult to fully quantify yet genuinely exists.

In this context, the debate over "whether Venezuela has regarded Bitcoin as a quasi-reserve asset and to what extent" continues. However, it can be confirmed that this extreme case provides real references at least on three levels: first, when the credit of the local currency undergoes systemic collapse, the speed at which social wealth quickly "anchors" in scarce assets will far exceed traditional textbook expectations; second, for countries facing severe financial sanctions, Bitcoin can to some extent reconstruct cross-border payment and value transfer channels, even if it starts through private networks and gray markets; third, even if sovereign entities do not formally disclose related holdings, they must acknowledge the existence of such decentralized assets in real responses and engage in subtle games around the potential capital flight, tax base erosion, and power redistribution it may trigger.

Behind BTC's $110,000: The Reality of Global Currencies, Inflation, and Capital Controls

Shifting the perspective from Venezuela back to the global stage, Bitcoin's rise to $110,000 essentially grows within the cracks of the existing international monetary and financial system. Over the past few years, major developed economies have been forced to implement unprecedented combinations of loose monetary and expansive fiscal policies under the dual impact of the pandemic and geopolitical conflicts, with the total scale of major central banks' balance sheets once soaring to historical highs of tens of trillions of dollars, only to be forced to rapidly reverse course and raise interest rates in the process of combating inflation. This cycle of "extreme proliferation followed by sharp retraction" has continuously torn apart the purchasing power expectations of traditional currencies. Even during phases of declining inflation indicators, many institutions and high-net-worth individuals remain highly vigilant about the real interest rates and tax burdens in the coming years.

In this macro context, Bitcoin, with its capped total supply of 21 million coins and inability to be arbitrarily increased, is increasingly viewed by market participants as an extreme tool to hedge against the long-term dilution of fiat currencies. Unlike gold, which requires complex physical storage and clearing arrangements, Bitcoin's cross-border transfer can theoretically be completed with just a private key and network, making it inherently attractive in economies with strict capital project controls and strong currency devaluation expectations. Whether in the Turkish lira, Argentine peso, or other currencies, during their respective phases of soaring inflation and pressure on foreign reserves, there have been instances of local residents purchasing Bitcoin in large quantities through over-the-counter channels, viewing it as a "substitute for offshore dollars."

A deeper reality is that the internal tensions of the global monetary system are intensifying. On one hand, the dollar still firmly occupies over half of the global trade settlement and foreign exchange reserve structure, possessing structural advantages in international clearing, energy pricing, and financial regulatory rules; on the other hand, an increasing number of countries are beginning to attempt to weaken their reliance on a single currency through local currency swaps, regional settlement systems, and digital currency experiments. These attempts will not shake the dollar's hegemony in the short term but provide a growth space for decentralized assets like Bitcoin in the margins. In certain scenarios where cross-border capital flows are extremely sensitive, traditional banking channels are closely monitored, and Bitcoin has become one of the few options that can still penetrate regulatory gaps.

Therefore, when Bitcoin is packaged on Wall Street as a high-risk, high-return alternative asset at a price of $110,000, on the other side of the world, it is simultaneously viewed by some entrepreneurs, capital holders, and even certain gray forces as a tool to hedge against local currency devaluation, break capital controls, and even reconstruct private wealth sovereignty. This dual identity means that Bitcoin's price fluctuations are no longer just a game of candlestick charts for traders but are gradually embedded in a larger narrative of global currency and power redistribution.

Will Countries Seize BTC Like They Did with Gold?

The discussion around "whether sovereign nations will collectively increase their Bitcoin holdings at some future point like they historically did with gold" has been heating up in recent years. Supporters argue that as Bitcoin's market capitalization surpasses the trillion-dollar mark and becomes deeply embedded in the traditional financial system through U.S. ETFs and other channels, its asset attributes are evolving from "speculative goods" to "digital gold." If sovereign entities remain completely absent, they may miss an important bargaining chip in future monetary power games. Opponents emphasize that Bitcoin's price volatility far exceeds that of traditional reserve assets, and its decentralized nature means it cannot be controlled or repriced through political or military means, which contradicts the logic of "manageable, controllable, and intervenable" that sovereign nations pursue.

From a practical operational perspective, even if some countries already hold Bitcoin indirectly or directly through various channels, formally incorporating it into official foreign exchange reserve accounts still requires overcoming legal, accounting, and political hurdles. Legally, most countries' foreign exchange management and central bank laws limit reserve assets to foreign currencies, gold, and specific financial assets, and Bitcoin has yet to receive a clear asset classification; in accounting, how to measure this highly volatile asset on sovereign balance sheets and what fair value or impairment rules to apply will impact fiscal data and political perceptions; politically, in a context where the domestic populace has yet to form stable expectations regarding crypto assets and the international community continues to debate their regulation and compliance, publicly announcing significant Bitcoin holdings may be interpreted as a challenge to the existing international financial order, triggering additional external pressures.

In contrast, a more likely scenario is a gradual and implicit path of sovereign participation. On one hand, individual countries that are highly distrustful of the dollar system and whose financial systems have been severely sanctioned or isolated may gradually accumulate a certain scale of Bitcoin positions through state-owned enterprises, sovereign funds, or even intertwined with private networks in secondary markets or over-the-counter channels, but without directly disclosing this in official statistics; on the other hand, those countries that wish to master pricing power and infrastructure dominance in the digital asset era are more likely to start by focusing on custody, clearing, trading rules, and tax frameworks to attract global Bitcoin liquidity to concentrate in their countries, using this as a "soft bargaining chip" in future digital currency order negotiations.

Returning to the question of "whether they will seize it like gold," historical experience tells us that competition among sovereigns for scarce assets often erupts at critical points of crisis or order reconstruction, rather than being conducted loudly at the early stages of a trend. When Bitcoin's price and market capitalization further expand, and it truly demonstrates functions similar to gold as a "last-resort asset" during certain key geopolitical conflicts or financial crises, the attitudes of sovereign players may undergo a qualitative change. Until then, Bitcoin will more likely linger in the margins of official asset allocation and regulatory discourse of various countries as a "shadow asset" that is reluctantly acknowledged but not yet fully accepted.

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