CoinW Research Institute
Recently, discussions about Venezuela potentially holding shadow reserves of Bitcoin worth up to $60 billion have become a market focus. Market rumors suggest that Venezuela may have secretly accumulated approximately $60 billion in Bitcoin over the years by evading U.S. sanctions through methods such as trading gold, exchanging oil for USDT, and then converting it to Bitcoin. If this scale is accurate, it would place Venezuela among the largest holders of Bitcoin globally.
What caused the surge in Bitcoin prices during the first week of 2026? Is there any truth to these rumors? What impact would a $60 billion Bitcoin shadow reserve have on the market? This report will explore these questions.
Venezuela Could Become One of the Largest Bitcoin Holders Globally
If the speculation about Venezuela holding approximately $60 billion in Bitcoin is true, the corresponding number of Bitcoins would be around 650,000 based on current Bitcoin prices. This scale would directly reshape the global Bitcoin holding landscape, accounting for about 3.1% of the theoretical total supply of 21 million Bitcoins, and nearly 3.2% based on the approximately 19.95 million Bitcoins that have already been mined. In comparison, Strategy, which has gained attention for its continuous large-scale Bitcoin purchases, currently holds about 674,000 Bitcoins. If Venezuela indeed holds around 650,000 Bitcoins, its scale would be close to that of Strategy, placing both in the same tier of top global Bitcoin holders.
On a national level, El Salvador, which actively embraces Bitcoin, has accumulated about 7,474 Bitcoins, a stark contrast to the 650,000 Bitcoins; while the U.S. government, considered a "big player," has only seized a total of 198,000 Bitcoins over the past decade through law enforcement actions (such as Silk Road and the Bitfinex hack). This indicates that the scale of 650,000 Bitcoins exceeds all confirmed national Bitcoin holdings. If this reserve truly exists, Venezuela would leap to become a leading national Bitcoin holder globally and join the ranks of the most influential Bitcoin whales.
From the perspective of institutional investment, this volume is also significant. Since the approval of the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF in 2024, institutional funds have rapidly flowed in, with U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs currently holding approximately 1.3 million Bitcoins (corresponding to a management scale of about $123.5 billion). The rumored 650,000 BTC from Venezuela is almost equivalent to half of all ETF holdings. Specifically, the largest BlackRock Bitcoin Trust, IBIT, has seen net inflows of over $62.7 billion. If Venezuela indeed holds $60 billion in Bitcoin, its scale could rival that of the world's largest Bitcoin fund. Excluding special cases like Satoshi Nakamoto, this reserve is sufficient to rank among the top five globally, with potential impacts not only on market supply and demand structures but also possibly sparking deeper discussions about sovereign wealth secretly entering the crypto market.
Is Venezuela Really Hoarding $60 Billion in Bitcoin?
The speculation about Venezuela potentially holding around $60 billion in Bitcoin primarily stems from a comprehensive estimate of its various asset conversion paths under long-term sanctions.
The first part is believed to come from the monetization of gold revenues between 2018 and 2020. Against the backdrop of U.S. financial sanctions and foreign exchange controls, the Maduro regime obtained liquidity through gold exports and continuously converted part of the gold revenues into Bitcoin while Bitcoin prices were still low. Assuming an average conversion price of around $5,000/BTC at that time, this batch of Bitcoins would be valued at approximately $45 billion to $50 billion at current price levels, making it the largest source of the $60 billion Bitcoin shadow reserve.
The second part is mainly attributed to changes in oil export settlement methods. After the failure of the Petro experiment, it was revealed that Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA requested some spot oil exports to be settled in USDT after 2023 to bypass the dollar clearing system. However, due to the address freezing risk associated with stablecoins, Venezuelan authorities subsequently converted a significant portion of USDT back into Bitcoin, creating a Bitcoin exposure of about $10 billion to $15 billion between 2023 and 2025.
The third part mainly comes from the seizures and confiscations related to illegal or gray mining activities in 2023-2024, which are estimated to have brought in about $500 million in Bitcoin. The combination of these three parts forms the estimated $60 billion Bitcoin shadow reserve, but its scale, control, and authenticity remain speculative.
In contrast, from verifiable on-chain data, mainstream tracking platforms currently only confirm that the Venezuelan government holds about 240 Bitcoins, corresponding to a value of approximately $22.3 million. This data reflects the current traceable official holding scale and highlights the gap between this and the high estimates circulating in the market.
Did the Venezuela Incident Cause Bitcoin's Surge at the Start of the Year?
In the first week of January 2026, Bitcoin's price rapidly climbed from about $87,000, briefly breaking through the $93,000 mark. Over the past five trading days, Bitcoin has accumulated a rise of about 7%, with its market capitalization reaching a peak of approximately $1.86 trillion. On January 5, Bitcoin touched near $93,000, setting a new high for the period.
This surge reflects Bitcoin's sensitivity to global political events. As traditional markets trembled due to U.S. military actions against Venezuela, investors increasingly viewed Bitcoin as a tool for hedging against geopolitical risks. The more specific driving force is that if the rumored massive Bitcoin were to fall into U.S. hands and be temporarily frozen from circulation, it would effectively reduce the available supply in the market, creating a supportive expectation for price due to this supply contraction.
At the same time, at the start of 2026, there was a concentrated net subscription of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, with approximately $697 million in net inflows recorded on January 5 alone, reaching a peak for the period. Notably, none of the 12 Bitcoin spot ETFs in the U.S. experienced net redemptions that day, with total assets under management rising to a new high of about $123.5 billion. The inflow effect brought by ETFs interacted with the supply tightening expectations from the Venezuela reserve rumors, collectively shaping the market sentiment for Bitcoin price increases.
Will the $60 Billion in Bitcoin Be Sold Off in the Short Term?
As the Maduro couple appears in a federal court in New York, the market is beginning to focus on how this unprecedented scale of Bitcoin assets will be disposed of. From a realistic perspective, the likelihood of a concentrated sell-off or rapid monetization in the short term is extremely low. A more predictable scenario is that these assets will be embroiled in a long and complex judicial and sovereign-related dispute, remaining in a state of freeze or custody for an extended period.
Even if the U.S. ultimately identifies and gains actual control over the relevant Bitcoins, their disposal will still face multiple legal constraints. On one hand, the case involves transnational law enforcement, the identification of criminal proceeds, and potential multi-party debt claims, making any substantive disposal action difficult to bypass the complete judicial process. On the other hand, Venezuela has long-standing unresolved large-scale sovereign debt defaults and international arbitration claims. Once the U.S. confirms control over substantial liquid assets, holders of defaulted bonds and multinational companies that have won arbitration are almost certain to apply to the court for injunctions to freeze any disposal or transfer actions. This process is highly similar to the long litigation surrounding Venezuela's overseas state-owned assets, and the relevant legal procedures are likely to extend over many years, even a decade or more.
A more critical obstacle is that the legal attributes of these Bitcoins are themselves highly complex and sensitive. The related accusations primarily revolve around individual criminal behavior rather than direct takeover of sovereign state assets. Therefore, even if these Bitcoins are discovered and controlled, they cannot be simply defined as national reserves. Within the judicial framework, they are more likely to be viewed as criminal proceeds of the individuals involved, requiring processing through forfeiture and adjudication procedures, with their final ownership potentially determined only after repeated negotiations among the U.S. government, any future legitimate heirs, or various debt claimants.
In summary, a more realistic scenario, consistent with historical experience, is that these Bitcoins will be long-term held in accounts controlled by law enforcement agencies, frozen as evidence or potential recovery assets. During this period, they cannot be freely utilized or enter market trading, effectively exiting the market for the long term. Of course, this reasoning is predicated on the assumption that these Bitcoins genuinely exist and are ultimately confirmed to be under control, with the final disposal results still awaiting further disclosure from law enforcement and judicial levels.
Are More Sovereign States Quietly Accumulating Bitcoin?
For long-term investors in Bitcoin, the significance of the Venezuela incident lies not in whether a rumored massive holding actually exists, but in its exposure of a previously overlooked risk dimension: the potential impact of opaque sovereign actions on Bitcoin's supply structure. In recent years, the market's understanding of government Bitcoin holdings has primarily been based on verifiable information. This includes either government-disclosed purchasing behaviors, such as El Salvador's regular announcements of its Bitcoin holdings, or publicly traceable seized assets in law enforcement cases, like those from Silk Road or the Bitfinex hack. These holdings have clear legal identities and traceability, allowing them to be incorporated into mainstream supply and demand analysis frameworks.
However, the rumors surrounding Venezuela have shifted the focus to a more concealed level, namely, the covert accumulation at the national level. If a country under long-term sanctions and severe financial pressure can still gradually establish a large Bitcoin position through gold swaps, energy settlements, and crypto asset channels, then theoretically, other resource-rich countries that are sanctioned or actively seeking to de-dollarize also have the motivation and capability to replicate this model. This suggests that within Bitcoin's actual supply, there may exist a portion controlled by sovereign entities that has long gone unrecognized and unpriced by the market. This portion of Bitcoin may not participate in trading during normal times, but in extreme situations such as regime changes, war conflicts, or judicial takeovers, its legal attributes and circulation status could be rapidly reshaped, thus becoming an important variable affecting the market.
At the same time, the role of stablecoins in this chain has also raised deeper institutional concerns. If stablecoins are widely used for energy or commodity settlements, their function extends beyond the confines of the crypto market and begins to touch on the real needs of countries to bypass the traditional dollar system. Once regulatory or judicial authorities conduct systematic reviews of related historical transactions, the focus will inevitably shift from individual cases to the stablecoin issuance mechanisms themselves and their compliance boundaries in cross-border settlements, challenging the market perception of stablecoins as neutral infrastructure.
In this context, the focus of the market is shifting. Compared to the political drama of the event itself, investors and the industry are more concerned about the factual aspects that may be gradually revealed next. Whether it will be possible to identify and verify the relevant wallet addresses and how global creditors will intervene in asset disposal through legal processes. These yet-to-be-confirmed details will ultimately determine whether the Venezuela incident is viewed by history as an anomalous episode or interpreted as the starting point for a change in Bitcoin's risk structure.
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