Does Venezuela have 600,000 Bitcoins? ‘Shadow reserve’ rumor pushes crypto markets

According to unconfirmed rumors, the Bitcoin price is rising this week partly because the Venezuelan government holds a secret Bitcoin stash worth around $60 billion.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading for $92,500.

Official figures indicate that Venezuela holds only 240 Bitcoins, but rumors suggest that Venezuela has converted all gold and oil revenues into Bitcoin since 2018 (as its own fiat currency had become virtually worthless due to skyrocketing inflation).

JUST IN: CNBC says “Venezuela may have quietly amassed a Bitcoin reserve worth tens of billions of dollars.” 👀 🇻🇪

“If the US seizes those coins and adds them to its own strategic reserve, you’re looking at potentially substantial supply of BTC getting locked up for years.” 🚀 pic.twitter.com/93lKEnzKmJ

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) January 5, 2026

Strategy

If Venezuela does indeed possess such a reserve, it would immediately become one of the largest Bitcoin hodlers in the world. Their stash worth $60 billion (for their 600,000 or so Bitcoins) would place Venezuela, in terms of size, only behind Strategy and almost double the reserves of the United States itself. The rumor has been repeated so often that it made it onto CNBC.

Venezuela: The $60B+ Bitcoin “Shadow Reserve”

Markets focus on the $17T+ in Oil that Venezuela owns.

But what they don’t know is that Venezuela one of the largest active $BTC holders in the world.

Similar in scale to both $MSTR and Blackrock.

Here’s how this impacts markets… pic.twitter.com/lf7CMUgtUB

— Serenity (@aleabitoreddit) January 4, 2026

These same reports claim that Venezuela has been using the stablecoin USDT (Tether) for their oil transactions since early 2024. The country launched a state-backed digital currency called the Petro (in a clear reference to the ‘petrodollars’) back in 2018, but it was discontinued in 2024, after which the Venezuelan government switched to USDT apparently.