Bitcoin, the missed savior of the national debt.

Nakamoto 2025-10-27 14:06 65939人围观 BTC

If a country accidentally obtained more than 200,000 Bitcoins in 2017, and today its debt is only more than 2 billion US dollars - in theory, this country would have been able to operate with "zero debt". This is not a hypothesis, but the real history of

If a country accidentally obtained more than 200,000 Bitcoins in 2017, and its debt today is only more than 2 billion US dollars - in theory, this country would be able to operate with "zero debt". This is not a hypothesis, but the real history of Bulgaria. In the past eight years, Bitcoin has transformed from a gray asset into a potential bargaining chip for national finances. However, many governments have missed the largest asset appreciation cycle of this century in their haste and fear.

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Bulgaria: Financial Regret In 2017, Bulgarian police seized 213,500 Bitcoins during an anti-cybercrime operation. These assets came from a hacker group and had a market value of approximately US$500 million at the time. The government was at a loss as to what to do—Bitcoin was new and sensitive, and both the Treasury Department and the Central Bank were worried about volatility and public opinion. Finally, they sold them all in 2018 on the grounds of "stabilizing finances", with an average price of about 15,000 euros per coin. Since then, Bitcoin has continued to rise and now exceeds $110,000. This batch of sold Bitcoins, if held to this day, would be worth as much as $25.2 billion. The current national debt of Bulgaria is only about 2.4 billion US dollars, which means that all debts can be paid off directly with that Bitcoin alone. What’s even more exaggerated is that this amount of money is enough to purchase about seventy brand-new F-16 fighter jets or build a nationwide high-speed railway system. However, it all remains in "if". The EU's fiscal discipline and traditional thinking made Bulgaria choose "safety" and also choose to miss out. That anti-mafia operation could have been a national financial turning point, but now it has become "the most expensive early sale case in Europe."

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United States: Transition from Auctions to Reserves The U.S. government has successively confiscated a large number of Bitcoins since 2013, mainly from the "Silk Road" black market, the Bitfinex hacking incident, and various fraud cases. The cumulative holdings are approximately 200,000 coins. In the early days, the U.S. Department of Justice auctioned all these Bitcoins, with auction prices ranging from US$400 to US$10,000 per coin. The most famous one was when venture capitalist Tim Draper bought 30,000 Bitcoins in 2014. The assets that were sold early are now worth more than $20 billion. By 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department began to adjust its thinking and announced the establishment of a "National Digital Asset Reserve", treating the newly seized Bitcoins as long-term strategic reserves to hedge against inflation and national debt risks. Currently, the United States still retains about 207,000 Bitcoins, which is about $24.4 billion at current prices. If Bitcoin rises to one million dollars in the next two decades, the potential gains from this reserve will exceed $2 trillion, which is equivalent to reducing the total national debt by 6%. For the United States, which is accustomed to using oil and gold as safe assets, Bitcoin is gradually being regarded as a "digital energy reserve."

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Germany: The boundary between rationality and short-sightedness In 2024, the Berlin police in Germany confiscated 50,000 Bitcoins from the piracy website Movie2k. The government followed regular procedures and sold the properties in batches within a few weeks, with an average transaction price of approximately US$57,900 and a total value of US$2.8 billion. A few months later, the price of Bitcoin doubled to $118,000. If they delay liquidation, they could have about $3 billion more on their books. At the European Parliament’s budget hearing, a member of Parliament bluntly said: “We trust the rules, but we don’t trust the future. ”The Ministry of Finance's response was to "prioritize stability and control risks." This answer was later ridiculed by the German media as "the pinnacle of fiscal bureaucracy." Afterwards, the German Finance Committee discussed the establishment of a "National Digital Asset Fund" to model long-term currency holdings based on the gold reserve system, but the proposal was rejected. The reason is still the classic statement: “Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. ”Ironically, in the same year, German private investors purchased more than $4 billion in Bitcoin assets through ETF channels. With official selling and private taking over, rationality has turned into an institutionalized illusion.

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UK: Invisible wealth under legal fog In 2018, London police seized 61,000 Bitcoins from suspect Jian Wen in an international money laundering case. The assets were valued at US$1.8 billion at the time and now exceed US$7.2 billion. The British government does not have free reign. The case involves transnational fraudulent funds. The victim's compensation process has lasted for many years, and the ownership of the assets has not yet been determined. At the same time, there are also disputes over the division of responsibilities between the Ministry of Finance and law enforcement agencies. This batch of Bitcoins belongs to the state, but is frozen by legal procedures. In 2025, Finance Minister Rachel Reeves publicly stated for the first time that the UK may include some of the seized crypto assets in the national budget to cover the fiscal deficit. However, once the government sells off, the market is bound to be affected ； If you continue to hold it, you are worried about being questioned as "speculation." This dilemma makes London’s Bitcoin a “money that can be seen but cannot be spent.” The British financial pressure after Brexit is huge. If these potential assets can be used properly, they may become a buffer for economic reconstruction. But under the double shackles of law and politics, it can only continue to "sleep."

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Bhutan: The Unexpected Winner in the Himalayas Unlike the above-mentioned countries, Bhutan obtained Bitcoin not through law enforcement seizures, but through state-led clean energy mining. Relying on abundant hydropower resources, the National Investment Corporation of Bhutan will launch an official mining plan from 2019. As of 2025, the country has mined approximately 13,000 Bitcoins, approximately US$1.5 billion at current prices. Don’t forget, Bhutan’s GDP is only about $3 billion. In other words, their Bitcoin reserves are equivalent to half of the national economic output. All these assets are deposited in sovereign wealth funds as long-term strategic reserves to hedge foreign exchange risks and inflation. While others fear volatility, Bhutan chooses to embrace volatility. For a small landlocked country, Bitcoin is not a speculative product, but a kind of “digital electricity that can be exported.”

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The Enlightenment of Digital Gold: Bulgaria sold Bitcoins that could have wiped out the national debt, the United States turned from auctioneers to currency hoarders, Germany missed dividends due to rationality, the United Kingdom was trapped by the law, and Bhutan doubled its national power through mining. The same assets, under different political and cultural systems, have completely different destinies. If gold defined the monetary system over the last century, Bitcoin is redefining the meaning of “reserve.” It tests not only technical understanding, but also a country’s view of time and risk. Digital gold is still growing, and regret will forever be written into fiscal history. In the future, someone may look up these cases again and ask: When opportunity knocks on the door, who dares to really keep it? Data sources: CoinDesk, Arkham Intelligence, World Bank, IMF Disclaimer: This article is only a compilation of public information and financial comments and does not constitute investment advice.