Admiral Samuel Paparo, a four-star commander at U.S.-Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), revealed during a House Armed Services Committee hearing that the military is operating a live node on the Bitcoin network for national security testing. This disclosure came one day after Admiral Paparo highlighted Bitcoin’s ‘incredible potential’ as a tool for American power projection and national security in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Admiral Paparo confirmed these remarks during his response to questions from Rep. Lance Gooden, marking this as the first public acknowledgment by an active U.S. combatant commander that the military is engaged directly with Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer network.
‘We are not mining Bitcoin,’ stated Paparo. ‘We maintain a node on the network for monitoring purposes and to conduct operational tests using the Bitcoin protocol.’ A Bitcoin node stores the complete blockchain history and enforces its rules, distributing validated transactions across the network without earning rewards or requiring specialized hardware.
By running a node, participants in the Bitcoin network can independently verify its state, eliminating reliance on third parties. As of early 2026, there are approximately 15,000 to 20,000 publicly accessible full nodes, though this number is likely higher when accounting for those hidden behind firewalls. The military’s single node among tens of thousands does not compromise Bitcoin’s autonomy or its safeguard against centralized control.
However, the fact that a U.S. military combatant command operates such a node is significant. It underscores Bitcoin’s design as a countermeasure to government takeovers, especially notable given INDOPACOM’s role in overseeing U.S. military operations across the Indo-Pacific region—a key area of strategic competition with China.