Admiral Paparo Tells Senate Bitcoin Is a Tool for US Power Projection

The top US commander in the Pacific just handed Bitcoin maximalists a talking point they could never have scripted themselves. Under oath. In front of the Senate Armed Services Committee. On Tuesday, Admiral Samuel Paparo described Bitcoin as a "valuable computer science tool" and pitched it as something much bigger than a monetary experiment, framing the network as infrastructure that serves American national security.

That is a sentence that would have been unthinkable in a Senate hearing room five years ago. It was said this week, without flinching, by the four-star admiral running Indo-Pacific Command.

What To Know

• Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, told senators Bitcoin is a "valuable computer science tool, as a power projection"
• Paparo argued Bitcoin's proof-of-work technology "imposes more cost" on attackers trying to compromise the network
• Senators Bill Cassidy and Cynthia Lummis introduced the Mined in America Act last month to onshore Bitcoin mining manufacturing
• The bill also seeks to codify President Trump's executive order creating the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve

An Admiral Puts Bitcoin on the Record

The comments came during a hearing focused on the strategic posture of US forces in the Indo-Pacific. Senators on the committee were there to discuss China's military build-up, coordination between hostile powers, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the continuing threat from North Korea. Somewhere in that conversation, Bitcoin showed up as an answer rather than a problem.

Paparo said the network's proof-of-work security model forces attackers to burn real resources to interfere with it. That economic friction, in his reading, is the feature and not the bug. Bitcoin is expensive to attack because it is expensive to run. That is exactly what you want in a piece of infrastructure you might one day lean on for something larger than trading.

According to the testimony published by [Admiral Samuel Paparo](https://www.btcpolicy.org/articles/press-release-indo-pacific-commander-calls-bitcoin-a-tool-for-us-power-projection-in-senate-testimony) through the hearing record, the admiral told the panel: "Bitcoin is a reality. It is a peer-to-peer zero-trust transfer of value. Anything that supports all instruments of national power for the United States of America is to the good."

"It is a valuable computer science tool, as a power projection."

Why Is the Pentagon Talking About Proof of Work?

This is not the first time a uniformed American has floated the idea. Back in December 2023, US Space Force member Jason Lowery argued that Bitcoin and other proof-of-work chains could serve as a cyberwarfare shield. His point then, which looks less eccentric today, was that most people think of Bitcoin as a "monetary system" and stop there. Fewer understand that the same mechanism can lock down "all forms of data, messages or command signals."

Put the two statements side by side and you can see a slow doctrinal shift taking shape. Bitcoin is being reframed inside American national security circles as a cryptographic utility first, a currency second.

The timing is not accidental. State-linked hackers have spent the last decade probing US infrastructure with phishing campaigns, ransomware, and distributed denial-of-service attacks designed to extract money or break critical systems. North Korea's Lazarus Group is the most infamous example. That crew alone has looted billions of dollars in crypto over the past ten years, funneling the proceeds into Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. The adversaries are already using this technology. The argument from Paparo and Lowery is that the US should stop pretending otherwise.

Tommy Tuberville's Question and What It Signals

The admiral's remarks did not come out of nowhere. They were a direct response to a question from Senator Tommy Tuberville, who asked how the US and Congress should lead on Bitcoin competition. Tuberville pointed to a detail that tends to get buried in American policy conversations: China's top monetary think tank now treats Bitcoin as a strategic asset.

Paparo did not answer the policy question head-on. He pivoted to the philosophical one instead. Bitcoin exists. It works. It moves value without a middleman. If it helps the country, use it. That is roughly the logic.

What is notable is what Paparo did not say. He did not hedge. He did not warn about volatility, illicit finance, or the usual fine-print disclaimers a career military officer might reach for. He called it a reality and moved on.

The Hashrate Paradox

The United States holds the largest Bitcoin reserves of any nation-state on earth. It also controls the largest share of Bitcoin's global hashrate. On paper, that looks like dominance. Under the hood, it is shakier than it sounds.

American miners run on equipment that is almost entirely manufactured overseas. If you trace the supply chain for industrial-grade ASICs, most roads lead back to factories outside US borders. That is a problem the Pentagon noticed a while ago, and it is exactly the hole that Congress is now trying to plug.

Last month, Senators Bill Cassidy and Cynthia Lummis introduced the [Mined in America Act](https://www.cassidy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cassidy-lummis-introduce-bill-to-boost-u-s-digital-asset-mining-back-president-trumps-strategic-bitcoin-reserve/), designed to pull Bitcoin mining manufacturing back inside American borders. The bill attacks the supply chain risk at its source. If the hardware is foreign, the hashrate is only as secure as the foreign relationship backing it.

Codifying the Reserve

The same bill does something else that Bitcoin watchers have been waiting for. It tries to lock Trump's executive order on the [Strategic Bitcoin Reserve](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/establishment-of-the-strategic-bitcoin-reserve-and-united-states-digital-asset-stockpile/) into statute. Executive orders can be written and rewritten with a stroke of a pen. A law passed by Congress is harder to unwind.

Codifying the reserve would turn a political decision into a durable one. That is the whole point. Paparo's testimony arrives in that context, not outside it. A senior commander saying Bitcoin supports the instruments of national power gives the legislation a uniformed endorsement that policymakers can quote when the bill hits the floor.

What Does This Mean for Bitcoin Holders?

Short version: the narrative floor under Bitcoin just got a little thicker. When Indo-Pacific Command describes the network as power projection, it becomes politically harder for future administrations to treat BTC as a nuisance. Harder, not impossible.

The longer read is that Bitcoin is drifting into the same conversational space as satellite networks, rare earth metals, and semiconductor fabs. Assets that are no longer purely economic. Assets that sit at the intersection of markets and statecraft. That shift changes how regulators write rules, how treasuries allocate capital, and how foreign governments plan around American positions.

Call it coincidence. Call it convergence. Either way, the hearing room is not where Bitcoin was supposed to get validated. It just did.