TechFlow news, January 8 — According to CoinDesk, Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, co-founder of cryptocurrency lending platform Ledn, has questioned claims that the Venezuelan government holds $60 billion worth of bitcoin.
As a cryptocurrency entrepreneur born and raised in Venezuela, Di Bartolomeo said the claim lacks credible on-chain evidence. He analyzed three possible sources of bitcoin: the large-scale gold sales in 2018, oil revenues denominated in bitcoin, and seized mining equipment, noting that the Venezuelan government’s history of corruption and mismanagement makes it unlikely to have accumulated such a significant amount of crypto assets. He specifically pointed out that the Central Bank of Venezuela has publicly disclosed reserves of only about $9.9 billion, with no reported holdings of bitcoin, while the country’s severe power shortages also pose challenges for large-scale mining operations.
