The United States has arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering. Multiple media outlets and intelligence analysts state that the Venezuelan government has secretly accumulated approximately 600,000–660,000 Bitcoins since 2018 through various means.
How did they accumulate so much BTC? Since the US intensified sanctions in 2018, the Maduro regime has used several methods to bypass the US dollar system and banking restrictions:
1. Gold for Bitcoin: In 2018, they exported大量 gold from the Orinoco mining region (about 73 tons, worth around $2.7