Christopher ZeniosBitcoin holdings in Bulgaria are worth about $2 billion and the gold reserves of this nation are worth around $1.8 billion, that’s about 40 tons of gold. Bulgaria is the first country or state that has more stored Bitcoin than it has gold reserves.
How does Bulgaria have more Bitcoin reserves than Gold reserves?
The 200,000 Bitcoins were discovered back in 2017 when a press release by the Southeast European Law Enforcement Centre (SELEC) announced that an investigation was underway and that “More than 200,000 bitcoins in value of $500 million found by the Bulgarian authorities.”
The authorities searched over 100 addresses and questioned many suspects, seized communication devices, equipment, documents and computers and it was determined that an organised crime group consisting of Bulgarian nationals with ties to other nations like Macedonia, Greece, Romania and Serbia. They would recruit corrupted customs officers and install a virus to custom computerized systems and once these viruses were installed, the offenders could finalize various transports when cargo would appear checked and cleared.
The organised crime group invested the money they obtained from the illegal activities in Bitcoin, around 200,000 bitcoins worth were discovered in the digital space. Bitcoin is difficult to track down and followed and this is the main reason why the offenders chose this means of investing.
After gathering all the information, the authorities needed to come to the bottom of everything, the authorities discovered the exact amount of Bitcoins were 213,519 which was worth about $500 million at that time. Today these Bitcoins are worth over $2 billion making Bulgaria the first country to have more crypto reserves than gold reserves.
How exactly the authorities found these Bitcoins is still unknown and it’s only logical to believe that these coins are in the possession of the Bulgarian government and that the nation has more cryptocurrency than it has gold reserves.
