President Donald Trump’s newly released 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) has effectively sidelined the technology he once vowed would be "made in the USA," creating a stark divergence between his campaign rhetoric and his administration's formal doctrine.
While the 33-page document identifies Artificial Intelligence, Biotech and Quantum Computing as the core battlegrounds for 21st-century power, it makes no explicit mention of Bitcoin, blockchain or stablecoins.
Market reaction
Bitcoin dipped below $88,000 over the weekend as traders digested the omission alongside the Federal Reserve's latest signals. It has since rebounded to the $91,000 level, but the message from the White House is clear: Crypto is an economic policy, not a national security imperative.
Hierarchy of powerThe NSS defines how the US views long-term threats. By excluding digital assets, the administration is signaling that while crypto is economically relevant, it does not rank alongside AI or Quantum as a "frontier technology" essential to national survival.
- The Focus: The strategy explicitly warns that adversaries are racing to weaponize AI and embed their own standards in global infrastructure.
- The Slight: Crypto is referenced only obliquely under a pledge to "strengthen American leadership in digital finance," language that prioritizes payment rails (SWIFT, Stablecoins) over decentralized networks.
The omission underscores the limitations of the administration's crypto agenda. While the White House signed the GENIUS Act and established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve in March, the fine print matters:
- The Reserve is funded solely by seized assets (approx. 200,000 BTC).
- There is no mandate for new Treasury purchases.
- The NSS confirms that Washington views Bitcoin as a financial asset to be managed by the Treasury and SEC, not a strategic resource to be hoarded by the Department of Defense.
This stands in direct contrast to Trump’s 2024 rhetoric, where he framed Bitcoin as a geopolitical check on China. "I don’t want China to be number one in crypto," he told the Nashville Bitcoin Conference in 2024.
The 2025 NSS suggests that while the President wants to dominate the market for digital assets, he does not view them as a primary instrument of statecraft. That role is reserved for chips, code and quantum qubits.
