It was reported that Bulgaria holds $2 billion in bitcoins with the nation’s gold reserves estimated at $1.8 billion, resulting in Bulgaria being the first country to hold more cryptocurrency than gold.

The response?

Following the report, the information has been traced back to a press release from May 2017. The press release gives details oh how Bulgarian authorities confiscated 500 million USD worth of bitcoin from a criminal operation that included citizens from several nations.

After the press release re surfaced, various media publications are now claiming that the bitcoins were held onto and that the government in now the most bitcoin wealthy government in the World. This is reported despite local news publications reporting that the government auctioned off the bitcoin to various international buyers.

The reports claim that Bulgaria’s finance minister, Vladislav Goranov informed the prime minister’s security council the sale had been completed and had been sold piecemeal to avoid a market crash.

“Several sovereign wealth funds and Asian investors”

“Several sovereign wealth funds and Asian investors” purchased the coins for around €15,000 each, with Deloitte acting as a consultant according to Goranov.
The conflicting information has caused a lot of talk in the bitcoin community.

Bitcoiners trying to spin a fake narrative. Bulgarian authorities seemingly hold 200K bitcoin seized from criminals.

Bulgaria does not hold bitcoin “reserves”.

Law enforcement bodies =/ Central bankhttps://t.co/eJWf6jlWzp

— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) July 22, 2019