🚨Venezuela's $60 billion Bitcoin shadow reserve has been released? Is the US going to seize it again? Could there be a massive dump?
This is the first reaction many people have after seeing this news.
After some research, there is no official confirmation of the size of this batch of Bitcoin, but since 2018, Venezuela has been almost completely cut out of the US dollar settlement system. They can sell oil but cannot receive dollars, so shifting to U+BTC has a relatively high credibility.
We can return to a more practical analytical framework:
👉 If it really exists, are there conditions for a dump?
We can analyze from three points: who can sell, whether there is motivation to sell, and whether they can sell quickly.
1⃣ First point: Who can sell?
If this batch of Bitcoin truly exists, they are either controlled by a multi-layered system within the Venezuelan government or have already partially entered gray or cold wallet structures.
In any case, they are not assets that can be freely transferred from exchange accounts, let alone inventory directly and clearly controlled by a single judicial entity like in Germany.
Even if the US intervenes, the realistic path is more likely legal freezing, judicial disputes, and long-term game-playing, rather than immediate access to executable selling rights.
2⃣ Second point: Is there motivation to sell?
From Venezuela’s perspective, the purpose of this batch of Bitcoin is originally to evade freezing, bypass sanctions, and retain settlement capability.
If they sell BTC now and convert back into dollars, stablecoins, or other financial assets, it essentially exposes themselves again to the system they are trying to avoid — which is logically self-defeating.
From the US perspective, there is also no immediate motivation to sell.
In the past, the US sold coins to handle judicial assets with clear ownership;
but in the current political environment, selling such a large amount of BTC neither fully solves fiscal problems nor creates significant market volatility, and instead weakens their strategic narrative of “Bitcoin reserves.”
3⃣ Third point, and the most critical one: Can they sell quickly?
Let’s start with a basic fact: the US does not have the technical capability to directly “seize” Bitcoin.
What they can do is only two things —
Declare it illegal, or through interrogation and transactions, force relevant personnel to hand over private keys.
If this batch of Bitcoin is stored in a multi-signature, permission-distributed, geographically isolated structure at the national level, then even if many key figures are caught, they may not be able to assemble complete control.
And even in the most extreme hypothetical scenario — if the US somehow manages to assemble the complete private key — such a volume of BTC cannot be dumped directly into the market like exchange assets.
Any rational disposal method would only be to gradually offload over years, off-market, through protocols, rather than a one-time market shock.
In other words, I believe it does not have the conditions for sudden selling pressure.
If a batch of national-level $BTC , which cannot be sold, cannot be moved, and remains in a long-term state of dispute and freezing, does that mean it has been factually locked out of circulation?
I think it’s more worth considering this question, and the answer might be contrary to what you expect!