Looking at the BTC national strategic reserve rankings, who has the largest holdings between China and the United States?

Author: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

It is less than two weeks before Trump takes office as President of the United States, and he may announce a series of governing policies on his first day in office on January 20. Among the many speculations, "whether Trump will push the United States to establish a national strategic reserve of Bitcoin" has become the focus of attention. Odaily Planet Daily has sorted out the major countries currently holding Bitcoin to help readers first understand the current basic situation of the Bitcoin National Strategic Reserve Plan.

Bitcoin national reserve rankings: four major echelons, with total

holdings exceeding 510,000 BTC

National BTC reserve data at a glance

First echelon: The United States and China are far ahead

The first thing I want to talk about is naturally the "large holdings" - the United States currently holds 198,109 BTC, worth 20.171 billion U.S. dollars, and the number of positions accounts for about 0.94% of the total BTC; China holds 190,000 BTC, worth 19.345 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for approximately 0.91% of the total BTC holdings.

It is worth mentioning that, according to information from the BitcoinTreasuries website, the US government’s BTC holdings all come from the confiscated income of the Silk Road website. Trump has previously promised to release Silk Road founder Rose after taking office. This may also It has become a hot spot for speculation; and according to the website’s source speculation, the Chinese government’s BTC holdings may mainly come from the PlusToken hacking incident that occurred in 2020. The number of BTC confiscated at that time was about 194,000. Some people believe that its BTC Positions may far exceed this number.

Second tier: Britain and Ukraine follow

Compared with the first tier, the number of BTC holdings in the second tier of the United Kingdom and Ukraine has dropped by an order of magnitude.

The former holds 61,245 BTC, worth approximately US$6.24 billion. According to feedback from sources, the main source of this batch of BTC is also confiscated funds, and this fund also comes from China.

In January 2024, according to the British media Skynews, a woman who had previously worked as a delivery boy in a Chinese restaurant was investigated after trying to buy a Hampstead mansion worth 23.5 million pounds. Subsequently, the police seized money worth more than £1.4 billion in Bitcoin. It is understood that Ms. Wen, 42, acted as a "front character" to help money launderer Qian Zhimin handle part of the profits from an investment fraud of up to 5 billion pounds carried out in China between 2014 and 2017. At that time, British police seized 61,000 BTC. Subsequently, according to data monitoring on the Arkham platform chain, the British government purchased 245 BTC at an average price of US$59,376 in September 2024, and its holdings have since grown to 61,245 BTC.

The latter holds 46,351 BTC, worth approximately US$4.72 billion. Regarding the specific source of Ukraine’s BTC holdings, there is currently no accurate information. However, according to statistics from multiple channels, it began to hold BTC on September 14, 2022. At that time, the price of BTC was only US$20,185. Compared with the current 10 For prices above 10,000 US dollars, the increase has been as high as more than 400%. Considering the Russia-Ukraine war that broke out in early 2022, we have reason to speculate that this position may be partly derived from crypto donations.

Third echelon: Bhutan and El Salvador become firm HOLDER

Bhutan and El Salvador, in the third tier, are more like “national-level position holders.”

The former's BTC holdings mainly come from the mining income of the Bhutanese royal family. It currently holds more than 11,000 BTCs worth US$1.19 billion. It is worth mentioning that the Bhutanese royal family is not a "diamond hand" all the time. It has sold small amounts of BTC many times. In December last year, it sold 420 BTC at a price of about 98,000 US dollars and 97,000 BTC respectively. 103 BTC were sold at a price around USD.

Compared with Bhutan, El Salvador is more like a "firm believer in holding positions" - the country not only took the lead in implementing the BTC national strategic reserve plan, but also has been implementing the plan of "purchasing one BTC every day"; And there are additional accumulations. The latest on-chain data shows that El Salvador’s BTC holdings have grown to about 6,010, worth $612 million.

The fourth tier: Venezuela, Finland, and Georgia hold small amounts

The BTC holdings of countries belonging to the fourth echelon suddenly dropped to hundreds or even dozens.

As a Latin American country, Venezuela has been plagued by inflation. Previously, Venezuelan President used cryptocurrency to circumvent U.S. sanctions, Venezuelan oil companies accelerated their embrace of USDT stablecoins, and Venezuelan authorities seized more than 11,000 Bitcoin mining machines and cut off many places. Events such as mine power connections. Last September, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado also proposed using Bitcoin as a national reserve asset. The current source of information for its holdings is Forbes magazine.

The Finnish authorities' BTC holdings had previously reached as high as 1,981 coins, worth nearly 75 million euros. The funds mainly came from assets seized by Finnish customs in anti-drug raids before 2018. After the Russian-Ukrainian war broke out in 2022, the Finnish authorities sold 1,891 BTC, worth $47.35 million at the time, and the average selling price was only about $23,000.

No specific source has been found for Georgia’s BTC holdings. According to the BitcoinTreasuries website, we only know that these 66 BTC were purchased in September 2022 at an average price of US$20,185. The specific information is still a mystery.

Other countries: Bulgaria and Germany who “sell and make money”

In addition to the above countries, Bulgaria and Germany are worth mentioning separately.

According to media disclosures, the former has seized more than 200,000 BTC from criminals. It is understood that the Southeast European Law Enforcement Center (SELEC), a regional organization composed of 12 member states including Bulgaria, issued a notice stating that a total of 213,000 BTC were seized that month. 519 Bitcoin, the operation resulted in the arrest of 23 Bulgarian nationals, with the arrests and subsequent asset seizure following an investigation into an alleged case of customs fraud. At that time, the price of BTC was approximately US$15,524, and the total value was approximately US$3.3 billion. According to a media report in 2022, the funds were eventually secretly sold by the Bulgarian government to Asian investors and sovereign wealth funds, with an average price of approximately US$16,900 and a total value of approximately US$3.6 billion. The funds raised were mainly used for Yu formed a new aircraft squadron for the Bulgarian Army. Looking at it now, the Bulgarian government has "sold" the equivalent of about 17 billion US dollars, which can be called "the most expensive price in history."

The German government is another example of "selling aircraft and making money", and it is undoubtedly a "fresher case" compared to the "long history" of the Bulgarian government's behavior of selling aircraft.

In June 2024, the German government sold all 50,000 BTC seized from the pirated movie website Movie 2k. The average selling price was about US$60,000. At that time, the price of BTC fell sharply by about 15%, triggering The market is in panic. After BTC gradually broke through new highs to around $108,000 after Trump was successfully elected as the next president of the United States, to a certain extent, in the eyes of people in the encryption industry, the German government has undoubtedly become "the biggest clown in the cryptocurrency field." ——Its selling funds exceeded US$2.5 billion, and the time difference was less than 6 months.

People have to sigh, even a national entity may not be able to grasp the "windfall" when faced with it. It can be said that time is fate.

Summary: It will take some time to open the Bitcoin national strategic

reserve

The latest news shows that Dennis Porter, co-founder of the Satoshi Action Fund, which advocates the establishment of a national strategic Bitcoin reserve, posted that the 14th state in the United States is now preparing to introduce "strategic Bitcoin reserve" legislation. At the same time, Simon Gerovich, CEO of Metaplanet, a Japanese listed company that "followed MicroStrategy's purchase of BTC reserves and experienced a surge in stock prices," previously said that if Trump adopts Bitcoin strategic reserves, other Asian countries may follow suit.

In addition, according to betting information from Kalshi, a well-known American prediction platform, the probability that Trump will promote the establishment of Bitcoin reserves by January 2026 is currently tentatively reported at 53%, which has dropped significantly from the high of 67.6%. .

At present, Trump still needs to go through many tests before he can fulfill his previous promises at the Nashville Bitcoin Conference. But in any case, the continued inflow of BTC spot ETF funds is a foregone conclusion, and the mainstreaming process of cryptocurrency has gradually accelerated. 2025 will surely be an important year for the penetration rate of cryptocurrency to increase again.

Can U.S. BTC holdings grow further? Can the U.S. BTC strategic reserve be established as soon as possible? What will be the specific operating mode?

Only time will tell us the final answer.