A four-star admiral in the US Navy told Congress that the military is running an active node on the Bitcoin network and testing it for national security purposes.
Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), made the revelation at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, a day after telling the Senate Armed Services Committee that Bitcoin has “incredible potential” as a tool for American “power projection.” He also said it has great potential as a tool for national security.
The House comments were the first public confirmation by a sitting US combatant commander that the military is directly participating in Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer network.
“We have one node on the Bitcoin network right now,” Paparo said, responding to questions from Rep. Lance Gooden. “We are not mining Bitcoin. We are using it for monitoring and we are doing a series of operational tests to secure and protect the networks using the Bitcoin protocol.”
A Bitcoin node is a computer that stores the complete history of the blockchain and enforces the network’s rules, transmitting validated transactions across the peer-to-peer network. Unlike mining, you get no rewards and don’t require specialized hardware.
Running a node is how Bitcoin participants verify the state of the network independently rather than relying on third parties. There are an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 publicly accessible full nodes on the network by early 2026, and the actual number is likely higher because many operate behind firewalls.
One node among tens of thousands poses no threat to Bitcoin’s independence or its resistance to any party that controls it.
But a US military command running that node is notable because Bitcoin’s design has long been framed as a defense against takeover attempts by powerful governments, and INDOPACOM is the command responsible for US military operations throughout the Indo-Pacific, including the theater of strategic competition with China.
