U.S. Navy Admiral Samuel Paparo States Government Views Bitcoin as a Tool, Sparking Strong Doubts in the Bitcoin Community
U.S. Navy Admiral Samuel Paparo stated to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that the U.S. government is running Bitcoin nodes and positions Bitcoin research as a tool of computer science, combining cryptography, blockchain, and proof of work. This statement has sparked strong doubts within the Bitcoin community.
Bitcoin educator Matthew Kratter pointed out that Paparo's testimony sounded like reading a Wikipedia page, questioning the depth of understanding from him and Senator Tommy Tuberville, suggesting that both were discussing something they did not truly understand, referring to Bitcoin as a "projecting power" method without specific explanation. The Rage reporter Lola Leetz directly called his testimony "nonsense."
Sam Lyman, research director at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, revealed to Cointelegraph that the Iranian government is charging oil transit fees in dollar-pegged stablecoins and Bitcoin, showing a preference for stablecoins but clearly valuing Bitcoin's core attributes of being non-freezable, having no central issuer, and being unable to shut down the network, viewing it as a strategic asset.
Source: Public Information
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The U.S. military has previously acknowledged running Bitcoin nodes and researching it as a potential strategic tool, consistent with the NSA's early monitoring projects on cryptocurrencies in the 2010s. Criticism from community members like Matthew Kratter continues the long-standing skepticism Bitcoin advocates have towards traditional institutions' "surface understanding," similar to the unfamiliarity displayed by lawmakers during the 2018 Facebook Libra hearings. Paparo's testimony again exposes the generational gap in understanding decentralized protocols between the military and legislative levels.
In terms of capital and business pathways, Iran's choice to use Bitcoin for oil settlements is primarily to circumvent the U.S.-led SWIFT system and asset freezing mechanisms. While stablecoins offer the convenience of dollar-pegging, they still face compliance risks of freezing by issuers (like Tether), whereas Bitcoin's non-seizability and network resilience make it a supplementary reserve and payment option in high-risk geopolitical environments. This approach aligns closely with strategies adopted by countries like Russia and Venezuela, which have turned to crypto assets under sanctions, aiming to build parallel financial channels to maintain cash flow from energy exports.
Historically, similar shallow institutional understanding has led to community backlash, including the SEC's early statements on ICOs in 2017 and Fed Chair Powell's initial definition of Bitcoin as "not money" in 2021, both of which were ultimately forced to deepen their understanding as the market matured. Currently, Bitcoin is in the early adoption phase as a strategic asset for sovereign nations. While the U.S. military has begun operating nodes, its public statements remain at a technical surface level, lagging behind the pragmatic paths of actual users like Iran.
This news essentially reflects a regulatory shift: U.S. institutions are transitioning from "passive monitoring + surface research" to "active node operation + strategic tool utilization." This change is driven by Bitcoin's demonstrated non-shut-down properties in global energy and sanctions scenarios, while real-world use cases from countries like Iran compel the U.S. to enhance its internal understanding, thereby pushing the military and Congress to evolve from "Wikipedia-level cognition" to an operational strategic framework.