US lawmakers are pushing to bring Bitcoin mining equipment manufacturing back to American soil. The move comes amid growing concerns that the country’s reliance on foreign hardware puts national security at risk.
Those concerns became part of the reason the four-star Navy commander took a rare public stance on Bitcoin on Tuesday, telling a Senate committee that it belongs in the same conversation as U.S. military power.
Mining, hardware and supply chain issues
Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Bitcoin serves as a tool for “power projection.”
His remarks were prompted by a question from Senator Tommy Tuberville, who noted that China’s top financial think tank has begun treating Bitcoin as a strategic asset and asked how Congress should respond.
Paparo did not answer this directly. What he said was direct enough: “Bitcoin is real. It’s peer-to-peer zero trust transfer of value. Anything that supports any means of national power for America is for good.”
US Admiral Claims Bitcoin Is Key to Cybersecurity and Power Projection
Admiral Samuel Paparo saw Bitcoin as a strategic tool for U.S. cybersecurity and national strength, emphasizing the benefits of proof-of-work. (read more)
➤ https://t.co/ik53cB163F#strength #admiral #Bitcoin
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Paparo argued that in addition to its role as a currency, Bitcoin’s proof-of-work system has practical significance as a cybersecurity mechanism. He said the design of the system would force anyone trying to attack the network to expend enormous resources, making a breach much more expensive.
“Besides the economic formalization, there are very important computer science applications for cybersecurity,” he told the committee.
Admiral Samuel Paparo called Bitcoin a valuable computer science tool for power projection during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.This is not the first voice to come from the military.
Paparo is not the first person to put on a uniform and cause trouble. In December 2023, U.S. Space Force member Jason Lowery argued that proof-of-work technology could be applied beyond finance, where it could be used to protect data, messages, and command signals from hostile actors.
Lowery said at the time that treating Bitcoin purely as a financial tool underestimates what it can do for national security. The difference now is the rank of the person making the claim.
BTCUSD trading at $78,062 on the 24-hour chart: TradingView
The hearing addressed a wide range of security threats, including China’s military buildup, the war in Ukraine, conflicts in the Middle East, and North Korea’s continued provocations.
Cybercrime has dominated most of these discussions. For example, North Korea’s Lazarus Group reportedly stole billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency over the past decade, with the proceeds funneled to North Korea’s weapons program.
Promotion of domestic manufacturing
The United States currently holds more Bitcoin than any other government and controls the largest portion of the global mining network. However, this position has weaknesses. The physical machines used to mine Bitcoin are mostly manufactured overseas.
Featured image from Meta, chart from TradingView
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