Venezuelan government may be holding and transacting in Bitcoin

Venezuela’s central bank is running internal tests to determine whether it can hold Bitcoin in its reserves. The state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA seeks to send Bitcoin to the central bank, and have the monetary authority pay the oil company’s suppliers with Bitcoin. Staffers are also studying proposals that would allow Bitcoin to be counted toward international reserves, now near a three-decade low at $7.9 billion.



The oil producer may have come to own Bitcoin because major banks are hesitant to do business with a sanctioned entity. Last month, the company received most of a $700 million payment in Chinese yuan after the parties struggled to find financial institutions that would facilitate a transaction. PDVSA wants the central bank, which officials at the oil company believe is less exposed to potential blocks, to use Bitcoin to pay entities PDVSA owes money to.