Opinion: 'Venezuela's $60 billion Bitcoin holdings' claim lacks evidence support According to BlockBeats, on January 8th, there have been recent market rumors that the Venezuelan government may secretly hold up to $60 billion worth of Bitcoin. But Ledn co-founder Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, who lives in Venezuela and has been engaged in Bitcoin mining for a long time, said that this claim is more based on speculation and second-hand information, lacking credible on chain evidence. The three main sources of related rumors: 1) A large-scale gold sale and exchange for Bitcoin in Venezuela in 2018; 2) Part of the oil revenue is settled in Bitcoin or cryptocurrency; 3) The government confiscated or stole mining machines for mining. Mauricio acknowledged that Venezuela did indeed receive cryptocurrency in some oil transactions and there were instances of the government confiscating mining machines, but he emphasized that there is no credible evidence to suggest that approximately $2.7 billion in gold sales in 2018 were converted into Bitcoin. The key figure of the transaction, current Minister of Industry and National Production Alex Saab, was detained by the United States between 2020 and 2023 and released under a prisoner exchange agreement at the end of 2023. If it is true that it controls BTC worth 10-20 billion US dollars as rumored, it will clearly contradict the official reserve size of about 9.9 billion US dollars disclosed by the Venezuelan central bank at that time, and there have never been any on chain addresses reliably attributed to Saab or the Venezuelan state. In addition, even if the Venezuelan regime has received cryptocurrency income, the extremely corrupt system is almost impossible for these funds to enter the national treasury. Mauricio cited the corruption scandal of SUNACRIP (the national cryptocurrency regulatory agency) exposed in 2023 as an example, pointing out that between 2020 and 2023, officials embezzled approximately $17.6 billion through illegal oil trading, and it is highly likely that the profits from cryptocurrency assets were also embezzled by individuals. As for the claim of 'using confiscated mining machines for large-scale mining', Mauricio also holds a negative attitude. He pointed out that Venezuela has long suffered from serious power shortages, aging infrastructure, and a large loss of technical personnel. The country finds it difficult to effectively operate core assets such as oil company PDVSA, and does not have the conditions to stably operate large-scale Bitcoin mines. Bitcoin does exist in Venezuela, but it is not in the hands of the regime