A four-star U.S. Navy admiral told Congress that the military is operating an active node on the Bitcoin network and testing it for national security purposes.
Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), made the revelation Wednesday during a House Armed Services Committee hearing, a day after telling the Senate Armed Services Committee that Bitcoin had “incredible potential” as a tool for US “power projection.” He also said it had great potential as a national security tool.
The House comments were the first public confirmation by a serving U.S. combatant commander that the military is directly participating in the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network.
“We currently have a node on the Bitcoin network,” Paparo said, responding to questions from Rep. Lance Gooden. “We do not mine Bitcoin. We use it for monitoring and we perform a number of operational tests to secure and protect 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, relaying validated transactions across the peer-to-peer network. Unlike mining, it does not yield rewards and does not require specialized hardware.
Running a node allows Bitcoin participants to independently verify the state of the network rather than trusting third parties. There were approximately 15,000 to 20,000 publicly accessible full nodes on the network at the start of 2026, with the actual number 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 U.S. military command running this node is notable because Bitcoin’s design has long been intended as a defense against takeover attempts by powerful governments, and INDOPACOM is the command responsible for U.S. military operations in the Indo-Pacific, including the theater of strategic competition with China.
