Venezuela: The geopolitics of Bitcoin are no longer theoretical | Opinion

In the early 16th century, a German named Ambrosius Ehinger marched deep into the Venezuelan interior, driven by a singular obsession: El Dorado. A city of unimaginable gold, ruled by a man said to cover himself in dusted metal. The legend consumed empires. Ehinger’s expedition ended in death, like so many others, but the myth endured, reshaping maps, alliances, and colonial ambition for centuries. 

Five hundred years later, Venezuela is once again at the center of a treasure hunt. This time, the gold is digital and called Bitcoin (BTC). And once again, the myth may matter more than the treasure itself.

The $60 Billion fixation

The crypto world is fixated on a single question: Does Venezuela control up to $60 billion in Bitcoin?

Whether the figure is accurate remains unclear. What is clear is that belief alone is already shaping behavior. The crypto industry tends to treat geopolitics as background noise, relevant mainly to prediction market traders and headline gamblers. That assumption is increasingly wrong. Whether Venezuela holds $60 billion in Bitcoin is almost beside the point. What matters is that crypto now operates inside the geopolitical system itself.

When regimes fall, sanctions tighten, or power shifts hands, crypto is no longer a side effect. It becomes part of the equation. For founders, investors, and operators, this is not optional context. It directly affects custody risk, regulatory exposure, capital flows, and legitimacy.

The industry likes to believe there are no vacuums. That markets self-correct. That protocols remain neutral. Reality is less romantic. Power vacuums do form, and they are rarely filled by communities alone. They are filled by institutional capital, sovereign actors, and state-aligned intermediaries.

The only open question is whether crypto companies will help shape that emerging layer, or operate under frameworks designed by those who do.

From regime change to asset exposure

This is why Venezuela matters, not as an outlier, but as a signal. Following Operation Absolute Resolve, the U.S. military operation that led to the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his transfer to stand trial in the United States, attention quickly shifted from regime change to asset exposure.

Officially, Washington’s interests are straightforward: oil, minerals, and strategic resources critical to the AI and energy competition with China. But beneath the surface, another question looms. What happened to the crypto?

Since 2018, Venezuela has operated one of the most extensive state-linked crypto ecosystems in the world. Under sanctions pressure, oil payments were settled through stablecoins, primarily Tether (USDT). Households turned to Bitcoin mining as an income source. Citizens used crypto to preserve value amid hyperinflation and currency collapse.

According to local economists and blockchain intelligence firms, stablecoins now account for a substantial share of Venezuela’s economy. Some estimates suggest up to 80% of oil-related revenues were settled in stablecoins. Under the guise of “national reform,” mining equipment was seized by the regime.

The logical inference followed: the state itself moved from regulating crypto to actively accumulating it.

Why this isn’t just a Venezuelan question

This is where the intelligence picture becomes murky. If Venezuela holds a meaningful Bitcoin reserve, even far below the rumored $60 billion, who controls the private keys? Are the assets fragmented across hundreds of cold wallets? Were access rights centralized under Maduro or distributed among trusted operators? Does his removal disrupt operational control? Could portions be traced, frozen, or seized?

The timing is not accidental. President Trump’s posture toward crypto is unconventional by any historical standard. His administration has treated Bitcoin less as a speculative asset and more as a strategic resource. In January, he signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. This is compounded by the Trump family’s deep exposure to the crypto industry itself.

Markets, states, and the end of neutrality

Several scenarios now circulate. Strategic absorption, where Venezuelan Bitcoin is quietly integrated into U.S. reserves, echoing America’s post–World War II gold consolidation at Fort Knox. Forced liquidation, mirroring Germany’s sale of seized Bitcoin, triggered sharp volatility. Or prolonged legal limbo, freezing assets in disputes for years.

And Venezuela is unlikely to be the last case. Analysts are already watching Cuba, Colombia, and beyond. Periods of geopolitical instability consistently push households toward digital assets, not out of ideology, but out of necessity. At the same time, when the world’s largest economy formalizes Bitcoin as part of its strategic framework, other governments are forced to respond. Some will adopt. Some will resist. Very few will remain neutral.

This opens a new frontier for the industry: government-facing infrastructure, compliance tooling, custody solutions, and intelligence-grade analytics. Like it or not, crypto’s B2G moment has arrived.

So, is Venezuela’s Bitcoin stash real? Possibly. Is it exaggerated? Maybe. But like El Dorado, the real impact lies not in the treasure itself, but in the pursuit. This time, the City of Gold may not be hidden in the jungle. It may already exist on-chain. And the world is acting accordingly.