KEYTAKEAWAYS
- Venezuela holds 240 Bitcoins, and analysts estimate its "shadow reserve" may exceed 600,000.
- Japan's Finance Minister has designated 2026 as the "Digital Year Zero," supporting the promotion of digital assets through exchanges.
- Polymarket Suspected Insider Trading in Venezuela's Maduro Incident, Potentially Involving WLFI Co-founder Address
- KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Venezuela holds 240 Bitcoins, and analysts estimate its “shadow reserve” may exceed 600,000.
- Japan’s Finance Minister has designated 2026 as the “Digital Year Zero,” supporting the promotion of digital assets through exchanges.
- Polymarket Suspected Insider Trading in Venezuela’s Maduro Incident, Potentially Involving WLFI Co-founder Address
- DISCLAIMER
- WRITER’S INTRO
CONTENT
Welcome to CoinRank Daily Data Report. In this column series, CoinRank will provide important daily cryptocurrency data news, allowing readers to quickly understand the latest developments in the cryptocurrency market.
Venezuela holds 240 Bitcoins, and analysts estimate its “shadow reserve” may exceed 600,000.
Data from Bitcoin Treasuries shows that Venezuela has held Bitcoin since December 31, 2022, with a current balance of 240 coins, worth approximately $22.33 million.
Previously, in May 2024, the Venezuelan government banned Bitcoin mining, citing energy load and power supply stability; in September 2024, opposition leader Maria Corinna Machado proposed including Bitcoin in the national reserve assets.
Meanwhile, the government-led national digital currency, the Petro, ceased circulation in January 2024.
However, other analysts estimate that Venezuela has been “laundering” assets into Bitcoin since 2018 through gold swaps and oil settlements in USDT, estimating its holdings at approximately 600,000 BTC, worth between $56 billion and $67 billion.
Some sources indicate that in 2018, approximately $2 billion worth of gold was used to purchase about 400,000 BTC at an average price of $5,000, equivalent to approximately $3.6 billion at current prices.
This scale is close to the holdings of MicroStrategy and BlackRock. If the US Department of Justice seizes and freezes these assets long-term, it could create a supply lock-in and short-term volatility, making rapid liquidation unlikely.
Japan’s Finance Minister has designated 2026 as the “Digital Year Zero,” supporting the promotion of digital assets through exchanges.
According to CoinPost, Japan’s Finance Minister, Saki Katayama, stated at the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s New Year opening ceremony that 2026 will be designated as the “Digital Year Zero,” emphasizing the crucial role of commodity and stock exchanges in promoting the popularization of digital and blockchain assets.
She pointed out that to truly benefit the public from digital assets, popularization should be promoted through exchange infrastructure.
She also mentioned the trend of the US using ETFs to hedge inflation, implying that Japan should actively promote similar developments, and stated that as the Minister of Financial Services, she would fully support exchanges in creating an advanced digital asset trading environment.
Polymarket Suspected Insider Trading in Venezuela’s Maduro Incident, Potentially Involving WLFI Co-founder Address
According to Andrey_10gwei’s on-chain analysis, an insider allegedly placed a bet of approximately $32,000 on Polymarket hours before the Maduro incident, subsequently winning $400,000.
On-chain data shows that the account was funded by two wallets that only interact with Coinbase. The fund flow of one of these addresses traced back to addresses with ENS names “STVLU.sol” and “StCharles.sol,” which deposited 252.91 SOL into Coinbase, a timing highly consistent with the insider account’s receipt of funds.
In addition, another related wallet had $11 million in transactions with an address called “StevenCharles.sol”, which is suspected to be Steven Charles Witkoff, co-founder of World Liberty Finance.
