Opinion: 'Venezuela's $60 Billion Bitcoin Holdings' Claim Lacks Evidence

January 8th Rumors have circulated that the Venezuelan government may secretly hold up to $60 billion in Bitcoin, but Mauricio Di Bartolomeo—co-founder of crypto firm Ledn, a Venezuela-based Bitcoin miner with longstanding industry ties—says the claim is rooted in speculation and secondhand information, lacking credible on-chain evidence. The rumors center on three key claims: that Venezuela swapped large-scale gold sales for Bitcoin in 2018, that some oil revenue was settled in Bitcoin or crypto, and that the government used confiscated or stolen mining rigs to mine the token. Di Bartolomeo acknowledges Venezuela did receive crypto in some oil transactions and has seized mining rigs, but emphasized there’s no credible proof the ~$2.7 billion from its 2018 gold sale was converted to Bitcoin. Alex Saab—the key figure in that 2018 deal, now Venezuela’s Industry and National Production Minister—was detained by the U.S. from 2020 to late 2023, when he was released as part of a prisoner exchange. If the regime controlled $10–20 billion in BTC (as some rumors suggest), it would contradict the ~$9.9 billion in official reserves the Venezuelan central bank disclosed at the time. Moreover, no on-chain address has ever been reliably linked to Saab or the Venezuelan state. Even if the regime earned crypto income, Venezuela’s deeply corrupt system would almost certainly keep those funds out of the national treasury, Di Bartolomeo noted. He cited the 2023 SUNACRIP (National Crypto Regulatory Authority) scandal, where officials embezzled ~$17.6 billion via illegal oil transactions between 2020 and 2023—a pattern he says likely extended to crypto assets. On the claim of large-scale mining with confiscated rigs, Di Bartolomeo is skeptical. Venezuela faces severe electricity shortages, aging infrastructure, and a mass exodus of technical talent; even state oil giant PDVSA struggles to operate effectively, making stable, large-scale Bitcoin mining farms unfeasible. “Venezuela does have Bitcoin,” he said, “but it’s not in the regime’s hands.”