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 and prices:
Intelligence reports indicate that the Venezuelan regime accumulated a "shadow reserve" of Bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT) estimated at more than $60 billion. (HUMINT)
his hoard was built through "gold swaps" and the requirement that oil exports be settled in USDT to evade sanctions.
Intelligence cited by Whale Hunting (authored by Bradley Hope and Clara Preve) indicates that the accumulation began in 2018, coinciding with the aggressive liquidation of the Orinoco Mining Arc’s gold reserves.
- The regime likely converted ~$2B of gold proceeds into Bitcoin at an average price of $5K, which would have been around 400,000 BTC. At Jan 2026 price of ~$90K, that specific tranche alone would be worth $36B.
As the "Petro" experiment failed, the regime pivoted to using Tether (USDT) as a proxy for the petrodollar during cruide oil sales. However, Venezuela began to "Wash" that into Bitcoin, recognizing that USDT retains the ability to freeze addresses.
Given market intelligence, we can estimate that Venezuela has roughly:
Gold Swaps: 2018–2020, Gold Bars, Value Now: ~$45B - $50B
Petro-Crypto: 2023–2025, Crude Oil, Value Now: ~$10B - $15B
Mining Seizures: 2023–2024, ~$500M
Giving a grand total between 2018–2026: ~$56B - $67B in Bitcoin, implied at 660K+ Bitcoin, with a floor at 600K in Bitcoin.
That does not mean US has full control of the Bitcoin yet. The days following today will be defined by a high-stakes interrogation to secure the Bitcoin.
The U.S. will likely offer plea deals, reduced sentencing, or protection for family members in exchange for the surrender of seed phrases. Given the severity of the narco-terrorism charges, the leverage is there.
So now the revelation of the $60 billion hoard fundamentally alters the supply/demand dynamics of the Bitcoin market for 2026, as the Venezuelan reserve is estimated at: 600,000+ BTC.
This is 12 times larger than the German sale and 2 times larger than the U.S. government’s entire pre-raid stockpile.
In 2024, the German state of Saxony liquidated ~50,000 BTC ($3 billion). This 50K BTC sale caused a 15-20% market correction and weeks of bearish sentiment.
Now compare that to 600,000.
Here's the leading entity holders of Bitcoin:
1. Satoshi Nakamoto ~1,100,000
2. BlackRock (IBIT) ~770,791.5
3. MicroStrategy ~672,497
4. Venezuela (Seized) ~600,000
5. U.S. Gov ~325,293
6. Mt. Gox Trustee ~140,000
Now, here's what will likely happen from here:
The "Frozen Asset" (High Probability):
The assets are seized but immediately entangled in complex litigation Creditors file injunctions; the DOJ claims forfeiture. The keys are held in escrow by the U.S. Treasury, but the coins cannot move.
Short-term volatility due to uncertainty, followed by a bullish "supply shock" narrative.
Short-term volatility due to uncertainty, followed by a bullish "supply shock" narrative. The market realizes that 600,000 BTC (3% of circulating supply) have been effectively removed from the market for 5-10 years. This acts as a massive "lock-up," reducing liquid supply and supporting higher prices.
The "Strategic Reserve" Pivot (High Probability):
Influenced by the "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" movement, President Trump orders the Treasury to hold the Bitcoin as a permanent U.S. asset.
This too acts as a massive lock up, reducing liquid supply and supporting higher prices.
The "Fire Sale" (Very Low Probability):
The U.S. DOJ declares the assets "perishable/volatile" and executes an immediate liquidation via Coinbase Prime or USMS auctions to fund the occupation costs.
However, this is unlikely due to Trump's positive stance toward Bitcoin "Reserves" from confiscating assets.
_
Results:
Markets have been looking at the massive oil reserve and beneficiaries, while ignoring the elephant in the room: Bitcoin.
The "second order effect" is likely a massive supply lock-up.
If the U.S. seizes these assets, they will likely move from "active liquid reserves" of a rogue state to "frozen sovereign assets" of the U.S. Treasury, reducing available supply and potentially acting as a catalyst for higher prices in Q1 2026.
There will likely be increased volatility. But for market participants shorting Bitcoin because of fears of "conflict", this event is generally seen as bullish for $MSTR and Bitcoin holders as this effectively locks up supply for many years to come.
DE PETRODOLLAR #Venezuela #Maduro
Reactie van een lezer op een artikel van VRT NWS:
Beste wat ik al gelezen heb.
🧵 (1)
De echte reden waarom de VS Venezuela binnenvalt, gaat terug naar een deal die Henry Kissinger in 1974 met Saoedi-Arabië sloot.
En ik ga uitleggen waarom dit eigenlijk gaat om het OVERLEVEN van de Amerikaanse dollar zelf.
Niet om drugs. Niet om terrorisme. Niet om 'democratie'.
Dit gaat om het petrodollarsysteem dat Amerika al 50 jaar lang de dominante economische macht heeft gehouden.
En Venezuela dreigde daar nu een einde aan te maken.
Dit is wat er werkelijk gebeurd is:
Venezuela heeft 303 miljard vaten aan bewezen oliereserves, de grootste ter wereld. Meer dan Saoedi-Arabië.
20% van alle olie in de wereld.
Maar hier komt het belangrijkste:
Venezuela verkocht die olie actief in Chinese yuan. Niet in dollars.
In 2018 kondigde Venezuela aan dat het zich zou "bevrijden van de dollar".
Ze begonnen yuan, euro's, roebels, alles BEHALVE dollars te accepteren voor olie. Ze dienden een verzoek in om toe te treden tot de BRICS.
Ze bouwden directe betalingskanalen met China die SWIFT volledig omzeilden.
En ze zaten op genoeg olie om de-dollarisering tientallen jaren te financieren.
Waarom is dit belangrijk? Omdat het hele Amerikaanse financiële systeem op één ding is gebaseerd: De petrodollar.
In 1974 sloot Henry Kissinger een deal met Saoedi-Arabië:
Alle olie die wereldwijd wordt verkocht, moet in Amerikaanse dollars worden geprijsd, In ruil daarvoor biedt Amerika militaire bescherming.
Deze ene overeenkomst creëerde wereldwijd een kunstmatige vraag naar dollars.
Elk land op aarde heeft dollars nodig om olie te kopen.
Hierdoor kan Amerika onbeperkt geld drukken, terwijl andere landen ervoor werken.
Het financiert het leger. De verzorgingsstaat. De tekorten op de begroting.
De petrodollar is belangrijker voor de Amerikaanse hegemonie dan vliegdekschepen.
En er is een patroon te zien in wat er gebeurt met leiders die dit aanvechten:
2000: Saddam Hoessein kondigt aan dat Irak olie zal verkopen in euro's in plaats van dollars.
2003: Invasie. Regimewisseling. De Iraakse olie wordt onmiddellijk weer in dollars verhandeld. Saddam wordt gelyncht.
De massavernietigingswapens zijn nooit gevonden omdat ze nooit hebben bestaan.
2009: Khadaffi stelt een door goud gedekte Afrikaanse munteenheid voor, de "gouden dinar", voor de oliehandel.
Uit gelekte e-mails van Hillary Clinton blijkt dat dit de BELANGRIJKSTE reden voor de interventie was.
Citaat uit e-mail: "Dit goud was bedoeld om een pan-Afrikaanse munteenheid in te voeren op basis van de Libische gouden dinar."
2011: De NAVO bombardeert Libië. Khadaffi wordt verkracht en vermoord. Libië heeft nu open slavenmarkten.
"We kwamen, we zagen, hij stierf!" Clinton lachte voor de camera.
De gouden dinar stierf met hem.
En nu Maduro.
Met VIJF KEER meer olie dan Saddam en Khadaffi samen.
Actief verkopen in yuan.
Betalingssystemen opzetten buiten de controle van de dollar.
Verzoekt om toetreding tot BRICS.
Samenwerking met China, Rusland en Iran.
De drie landen die wereldwijd de ontdollarisering leiden.
Dit is geen toeval.
Daag de petrodollar uit. Zorg voor regimeverandering.
Elke. Keer. Weer.
Stephen Miller (adviseur binnenlandse veiligheid van de VS) zei het twee weken geleden letterlijk hardop:
"Amerikaans zweet, vindingrijkheid en zware arbeid hebben de olie-industrie in Venezuela gecreëerd. De tirannieke onteigening ervan was de grootste geregistreerde diefstal van Amerikaanse rijkdom en eigendom."
Hij verbergt het niet.
Ze beweren dat Venezolaanse olie aan Amerika TOEBEHORT omdat Amerikaanse bedrijven deze 100 jaar geleden hebben ontwikkeld.
Volgens deze logica was elke genationaliseerde grondstof in de geschiedenis "diefstal".
Maar hier is het DIEPERE probleem:
De petrodollar is al aan het sterven.
Rusland verkoopt sinds Oekraïne olie in roebels en yuan.
Saudi-Arabië bespreekt openlijk betalingen in yuan.
Hilo: Así vive Venezuela hoy 🧵
1️⃣ Ya no te secuestran solo en tu casa.
Ahora te interceptan en la calle, sin orden judicial, te quitan la libertad y luego… te borran del sistema. (hrw.org)
2️⃣ No hay expediente.
No hay tribunal.
No hay causa.
Para el Estado, no existes.
3️⃣ Y cuando no existes legalmente, pueden hacer contigo lo que quieran físicamente.
Las familias quedan sin información, sin derechos.
4️⃣ Esto va más allá de los presos políticos.
En Venezuela, todos viven bajo amenaza, sin importar su actividad política.
5️⃣ Así operan:
•Te interceptan en la calle.
•Te desaparecen del registro.
•Niegan tu detención.
•Impunidad total.
6️⃣ Esto no es negligencia.
Es terror de Estado.
La desaparición de la identidad es el paso previo a la desaparición forzada.
7️⃣ Hoy ocurre en Venezuela.
Y ocurre en silencio.
Que el mundo lo sepa.
Para izquierdistas con brújula dañada:
Con el chavismo no ocurrió una “lucha contra la oligarquía”.
Ocurrió algo distinto y mucho más grave: la sustitución de élites.
La oligarquía tradicional —empresarial, productiva, con límites institucionales— fue desplazada, expropiada o expulsada.
En su lugar no surgió una sociedad más igualitaria, sino una estructura de poder criminal: política, militar y económica, sostenida por coerción, rentas ilegales y control del Estado.
Hoy, en Venezuela, la riqueza no es fruto de competir ni producir, sino de obedecer, intermediar o reprimir.
Eso no es justicia social.
Es captura del Estado.
#Venezuela #AnálisisPolítico #PolíticaSinPasiones #Chavismo
“Our journey towards freedom has always lived inside us. We are returning to ourselves. We are returning home.”
Maria Corina Machado, 2025 peace prize laureate, delivered a powerful Nobel Peace Prize lecture in Oslo, Norway. Although she could not be present in person, her words were carried to us by her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado.
In the lecture, Machado reminded us that the spirit of liberty is rooted in Venezuelan soil, and encouraged Venezuelans to keep fighting for freedom. She guided us through Venezuela’s history of democracy. In 1811, Venezuelan wrote the first constitution in the Spanish-speaking world – affirming the radical idea that every human being carries a sovereign dignity and enshrining citizenship, individual rights, religious liberty, and separation of powers.
She illustrated how Venezuela opened its arms to migrants and exiles from every corner of the earth in times of turmoil, for example, Spaniards fleeing civil war, Italians and Portuguese escaping poverty and dictatorship, and Jews after the Holocaust.
She spoke of how authoritarian rule emerged from 1999 onward, as the current regime dismantled democratic institutions, oppressed its own people, and how she and her fellow Venezuelans have continued to fight for freedom.
It is her firm belief that "freedom is a choice that must be renewed each day, measured by our willingness and our courage to defend it", and that the will of the Venezuelan people will prevail, restoring democracy and hope in Venezuela.
Watch the full lecture: nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2…
Simon Dixons wise words
‼️ THEY ARE LYING TO YOU
Wall Street & British bankers created the Federal Reserve in 1913 to take over the role of the Bank of England after bankrupting the UK government in service of the military-industrial complex (MIC).
Wall Street funded the Bolshevik Revolution to install the Communist dictatorship in Russia.
Wall Street handed over gold held at the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve every time Hitler invaded a new country.
Wall Street funded World War I & World War II to build the U.S. MIC, which backed the dollar through the IMF, World Bank, & Federal Reserve, forcing the world onto a dollar standard.
Wall Street funded the Cold War while profiting from crony capitalism fueled by debt in the US & communism in the Soviet Union.
Wall Street needed war in order to shift power from the MIC to the financial-industrial complex (FIC). Each time it escalated a covert war, it securitized and financialized national resources through color revolutions, IMF debt, sanctions, and political interference to install compliant dictators.
Wall Street needed NATO to prop up the dollar with ever more weapons sales even after Gorbachev managed the fall of the Soviet Union.
Wall Street needed to manufacture a fake war on terror and drugs, while the CIA profited from drug trafficking, human trafficking, sex trafficking, and weapons trafficking.
Wall Street needed Afghan poppy seeds to sustain the drug trade. When the Taliban stopped the flow of drugs, they were replaced with a puppet Taliban to turn the drugs back on.
Wall Street hedge funds needed the Bank of Japan to gamble and manipulate markets so they can profit from wars & steal resources.
The towers came down with the knowledge and coordination of the CIA, Mossad, & Saudi intelligence. The CIA manufactured ISIS & Al-Qaeda.
Now the financial-industrial complex is being challenged by the technological-industrial complex (TIC), after Wall Street handed over Pentagon technology to Google, Apple, Microsoft, Palantir, Nvidia, Tesla, Facebook, Twitter, and others, while manufacturing myths about entrepreneurs starting in garages to privatize the control grid they created.
Now the goal is CBDCs, stablecoins, tokenized everything, digital IDs, social credit scores, AI and pre-crime policing. The TIC is manufacturing civil unrest to introduce its new control grid.
What they are testing in Gaza is a beta version of what the TIC wants for you, as outlined by George Orwell in 1984.
To convince you this was capitalism and the export of democracy based on Christian values and a “superior civilization,” they sold you the American Dream & freedom of speech.
It was never capitalism.
It was never democratic.
Instead, you became a debt slave to Wall Street, or a Wall Street puppet compromised through Jeffrey Epstein–style operations, allowed to remain in power only if you submitted to the Proof-of-Weapons network.
Now they want you to believe Trump is here to “Make America Great Again,” even as government has become subordinate to the FIC and corporate interests.
All the while, they hide the fact that Wall Street wants BRICS & a multipolar world, strategically weakening the dollar by selling U.S. companies to Gulf states that built sovereign wealth using Chinese money.
They are now engineering a controlled demolition of the petrodollar, eurodollar, and Japan carry trade, breaking commodity backed derivatives contracts to force another QE cycle at low interest rates.
Trump is there to shrink the U.S. into a regional power, weaken the dollar, inflate asset prices, and monetize debt through fiscal dominance, leaving the average American with the debt while the Proof-of-Weapons network takes the profits.
Everything they are still selling you is nothing but lies.
Americans are no longer useful to Wall Street so they are bringing their violence home.
Protect yourself.
Relearn the BS history they wrote for you:
THE ULTIMATE ORANGE PILL🔥
Here’s the thing nobody wants to say out loud because it ruins brunch:
The natural state of a free market is deflation. Prices falling. Abundance increasing. Life getting easier. More stuff, cheaper, better, faster, forever. That is what competition plus technology actually does when left alone.
If this sounds insane to you, congratulations, you have been successfully domesticated like the tax cattle that you are!
Every year humans invent machines that do more work for less energy, less time, less labor. Computers get cheaper. Software scales infinitely. AI is about to vaporize entire white-collar industries while running on electricity that gets more efficient every decade. In a sane system, this means your money buys more every year and you work less to live better.
But that cannot be allowed!
Because the entire global economy is a rotting debt tower duct-taped together with the promise that tomorrow will fix today. And deflation is kryptonite to debt. Deflation is debt sobriety. It’s the moment the drunk realizes the bar is closed.
So instead, they light money on fire on purpose.
They call it “stimulus.” They call it “growth.” They call it “2 percent inflation targets,” like that isn’t a polite way of saying “we will steal from you slowly so you don’t riot.”
Inflation is the anesthetic required to keep this corpse economy moving. It makes debt lighter, assets explode upward, and wages chase prices like a dog chasing a car it will never catch.
That’s why your grandparents bought a house on one salary and you need a dual-income household, a side hustle, a crypto portfolio, and mild alcoholism just to rent a condo with inspirational wall art.
Technology is screaming, “Everything should be cheaper.”
Central banks are screaming back, “Shut the fuck up.”
Bitcoin says: what if money actually reflected reality?
What if productivity gains weren’t stolen before they reached you? What if saving wasn’t a financial death sentence? What if the future wasn’t a leveraged hallucination funded by your shrinking purchasing power?
That’s the orange pill.
It’s realizing that inflation is a controlled demolition of your time, your labor, your future, dressed up as economic management.
And deflation, the thing they tell you to fear, is just abundance trying to happen before being beaten back into submission.
And once you see that, you don’t unsee it. You just sit there quietly at dinner, smiling, while everyone else argues about interest rates like hostages negotiating with their captors.
Welcome to the ultimate orange pill.
BUY BITCOIN AND INHERIT THE PRODUCTIVITY GAINS OF HUMANITY WITHOUT DEBASEMENT
La dictadura en Venezuela 🇻🇪 ahora dice que incautar barcos sancionados es “piratería”.
Pero robar elecciones, robar PDVSA y robar el futuro…
eso sí es “revolución” 🤡
El régimen intenta blindar legalmente su economía ilícita. Es un choque directo con el orden marítimo internacional y confirma que el petróleo sigue siendo una parte importante del financiamiento del régimen, no del país.
📌 Fuente: Associated Press (AP)
BRUSSELS’ DEMOGRAPHIC REPLACEMENT: DENIAL IS NO LONGER POSSIBLE - 3 OUT OF 4 CHILDREN ARE OF NON-EUROPEAN ORIGIN
Official figures show that nearly 3 out of 4 children in Brussels are now of non-European origin, a transformation with profound social consequences.
Only a small fraction of minors in the city are of Belgian origin, while the vast majority come from outside Europe, reshaping the future population in real time.
This did not happen by accident, but through deliberate policy choices made by political elites who dismissed warnings as “myths.”
Family reunification has become the primary engine of mass settlement, accelerating demographic change far beyond public consent.
When a capital city reaches the point where most of its population no longer shares historical, cultural, or civic roots, integration becomes an illusion.
What is unfolding in Brussels is not diversity management, but demographic replacement driven by policy inertia and ideological blindness.
Refusing to acknowledge these numbers only deepens public mistrust and guarantees further social fracture.
Source: @immigrbarometer
🇪🇺🇧🇪 FROM EUROPE’S RICHEST TO A STATE LOSING CONTROL - HOW BELGIUM BLEW IT: DEBT, CRIME, AND A GOVERNMENT IN PARALYSIS
Belgium was once one of Europe’s most prosperous and stable countries, standing alongside the Netherlands as a model of wealth and governance.
Thirty years later, it is drowning in debt, paralysed politically, and openly warned by its own judges that it is sliding toward a narco-state.
Public debt is heading beyond 120% of GDP, deficits are entrenched, and governments collapse before any serious reform can be enforced.
This is not a sudden crisis, but the result of decades of institutional decay, endless bureaucracy, and a political system incapable of decisive action.
As the state weakens, organised crime has moved in, exploiting fractured policing, porous ports, and a justice system under strain.
Antwerp, one of Europe’s most important ports, has become a key entry point for cocaine and large-scale money laundering networks.
Judges now warn that criminal structures are no longer marginal, but embedded within public institutions themselves.
Corruption, intimidation, and violence are no longer anomalies, but recurring features in parts of the country.
Meanwhile, Belgium’s complex and bloated governance model drains public finances while delivering less security, less order, and less accountability.
A rich country surrounded by stable neighbours is failing not because it lacks resources, but because it lacks authority and cohesion.
Belgium’s trajectory is a warning to Europe of what happens when debt piles up, governance fragments, and the state retreats.
This is not just economic decline, it is the slow erosion of sovereignty from within.
Source: elEconomista
EUROPE’S DECLINE IS SELF-INFLICTED - AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT
Europe today has no serious internet sector, no global tech champions, and no innovation engine capable of competing with the U.S. or Asia.
Its economy is stagnant, its industrial base is hollowing out, unemployment remains structurally high, and energy dependency has become a permanent vulnerability.
This is not bad luck, it is the result of deliberate choices.
Crippling regulation, punitive taxes, ideological climate policies, and hostility toward free markets have suffocated growth and driven capital elsewhere.
Europe lectures the world on values while importing energy, outsourcing innovation, and regulating itself into irrelevance.
To rebuild anything, infrastructure, industry, competitiveness, Europe would need to deregulate, cut taxes, abandon climate absolutism, and embrace real market economics.
These are reforms Europe refuses to make, even as its decline accelerates.
The tragedy is not that Europe cannot compete, it is that it chooses not to.
A fixed Bitcoin cap will cause a deflation spiral, which is bad for the economy!”
Oh please.
Deflation is bad for debt-soaked fiat regimes that need infinite money printing to avoid collapse.
Let me translate what they’re actually saying:
“If money gets more valuable over time, people might save instead of spending every paycheck on garbage they don’t need to keep zombie corporations on life support.”
The horror.
Here’s what they won’t tell you:
Fiat runs on debt. All of it.
• Governments borrow
• Corporations borrow
• You borrow
The whole thing is a Jenga tower of IOUs that only works if tomorrow’s dollar is worth less than today’s.
Inflation is the grease that keeps the machine running. You repay loans with cheaper money. Debt gets easier to service.
That’s theft with extra steps.
Now flip it. What happens when money actually appreciates?
• Debt becomes a death sentence
• Governments can’t print their way out
• Corporations can’t roll garbage debt forever
The Ponzi collapses. That’s why they fear deflation. Not because it hurts you. Because it kills them.
Now let’s talk Bitcoin.
Bitcoin doesn’t run on debt.
It doesn’t need infinite expansion.
It doesn’t require you trapped in loans to function.
Bitcoin rewards saving.
Bitcoin rewards production.
Bitcoin rewards long-term thinking.
In a Bitcoin system, money appreciates because supply is fixed and demand grows.
Every sat saved today buys more tomorrow, not less.
What does that create?
Discipline.
• People stop financing junk
• Companies stop leveraging themselves into oblivion
• Governments can’t fund endless wars on a credit card
“But won’t people hoard and never spend?”
No. People still spend. They just spend wisely.
On things that actually matter, not impulse garbage financed at 29 percent APR.
Deflation destroys fiat systems because they’re designed to punish savers and reward debtors.
Deflation in Bitcoin is natural, healthy, and inevitable. It rewards people who create real value and store it across time.
Imagine a world where your paycheck buys you more every year, not less. A world where the cost of groceries, homes, and healthcare falls—or at least stays the same—over time.
Opt out.