A four-star U.S. Navy admiral told Congress that the military is running a live node on the Bitcoin network and testing it for national security purposes.
Gen. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), disclosed the news 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 U.S. “power projection.” He also said it has huge potential as a tool for national security.
The House comments are the first time a current U.S. combat commander has publicly confirmed that the military is directly involved in the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network.
“We now have a node on the Bitcoin network,” Paparo said in response to a question from Rep. Lance Gooden. “We’re not mining Bitcoin. We’re using it to monitor, and we’re doing a lot of operational testing to ensure the security of the network using the Bitcoin protocol.”
A Bitcoin node is a computer that stores the complete history of the blockchain and enforces network rules, relaying verified transactions through a peer-to-peer network. Unlike mining, it does not earn rewards and does not require specialized hardware.
Running a node is a way for Bitcoin participants to independently verify the state of the network rather than trusting a third party. As of early 2026, there are an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 publicly accessible full nodes on the network, with the actual number likely to be higher as many nodes run behind firewalls.
One node among tens of thousands poses no threat to Bitcoin’s independence or resistance to any party controlling it.
But the U.S. Military Combat Command running the node is noteworthy because Bitcoin has long been thought to be designed to defend against takeover attempts by powerful governments, and Indo-Pacific Command is the command responsible for U.S. military operations in the Indo-Pacific region, including the theater of strategic competition with China.
