In the wake of the US takeover of Venezuela and speculation about Donald Trump’s confiscation of the country’s bitcoin (BTC) for the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR), another possible target for state bitcoin seizure might be Cuba.
Already this week, there’s widespread speculation among Cubans that Trump is coming next for the regime assets of Miguel Díaz-Canel, the successor to Raúl and Fidel Castro.
Last week, the president ordered the US military to extradite Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, administrate the entire country, and extract tens of millions of oil barrels. The sudden news sparked speculation that the US might confiscate up to $60 billion worth of his regime’s supposed BTC “shadow reserve.”
Moreover, Trump explicitly revived the Monroe Doctrine as a warning to other Western Hemisphere countries, stamping his brassy name onto it as this year’s “Donroe Doctrine.”
The Monroe Doctrine was originally a bluff, warning Europe about supposed US military control of the Western Hemisphere. At inception in the 1820s, of course, the US lacked a military to back up its threat, quietly relying on the British navy to enforce the doctrine.
Today, the US military certainly has more ability to control the Western Hemisphere, with Cuba a communist country of obvious geographic importance.
Is Cuba next?
A mere 90 miles from Florida’s coastline, Cuba influences oil shipping lanes and also hosts the US Guantánamo Bay Naval Base. The country has also welcomed Soviet vessels and nuclear warheads to its sovereign waters.
Like Venezuela, Cuba has never disclosed any direct state ownership of substantial quantities of BTC. Indeed, Forbes was only able to find 240 Venezuelan state BTC in 2022 and no more since.
However, an unofficial and contested estimate of Maduro’s holdings exceeds 600,000 BTC.
If the US were to seize BTC from the Maduro regime and claim that money was the proceeds of his alleged crimes, it might add those coins to the US SBR.
This possibility also sparked speculation about a future seizure of BTC from Cuba, if Trump were to ever overthrow Díaz-Canel’s regime.
Read more: US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve audit now 172 days overdue
BTC seizures in focus amid speculation about Venezuelan ‘shadow reserve’
“The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve will be capitalized with BTC owned by the Department of Treasury that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings,” ordered Trump in a March 2025 executive order.
He continued, “the United States will not sell BTC deposited into this Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.”
Díaz-Canel’s regime has substantial assets under US sanctions, including frozen assets of members of Castro and Díaz-Canel regimes. Cuba also has a history of crypto regulation and participation, including explicit central bank oversight of BTC.
Obviously, the precise quantity of BTC connected to the Cuban state or Díaz-Canel’s administration is unknown, with the regime highly motivated to hide its assets from US Treasury surveillance.
Nonetheless, a surprise overthrow of Cuba could unearth hidden stores of BTC that the US could dubiously claim should be surrendered to its SBR as proceeds of crime.
The US has previously contemplated overthrowing regimes in Cuba, during and preceding the Spanish-American war, the Second United States Occupation, and later during the Cold War when the CIA repeatedly attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro.
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Source: https://protos.com/does-cuba-have-any-state-bitcoin-that-the-us-could-seize/
