Via gizmodo.com
The vice president used the Bitcoin 2025 conference to frame the asset as a geopolitical tool against China, building on the administration's broader crypto strategy.
Vice President JD Vance took the stage at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas on May 28 and made the administration’s position about as clear as it gets: the US government should be leaning into Bitcoin, not away from it.
His reasoning centered on a familiar adversary. “If the communist Republic of China is leaning away from Bitcoin, then maybe the United States ought to be leaning into Bitcoin,” Vance told the conference crowd, framing the world’s largest cryptocurrency as both a strategic asset and a geopolitical chess piece.
From seizures to strategy #
Vance’s remarks build on a policy foundation the Trump administration laid earlier this year when the president signed an executive order on March 6, 2025, establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve alongside a US Digital Asset Stockpile.
The core idea behind the reserve is straightforward: stop selling seized Bitcoin and start treating it like a long-term national asset. The US government is the largest state holder of Bitcoin in the world, having accumulated hundreds of thousands of BTC through law enforcement seizures over the years. Previous administrations routinely auctioned off those holdings. The current approach flips that playbook entirely.
Vance’s speech highlighted what he sees as Bitcoin’s key attributes: scarcity and security.
Skin in the game #
The vice president isn’t just talking his book. He’s also holding one. Financial disclosures reveal that Vance personally owns Bitcoin valued between $250,001 and $500,000. That puts him among the most crypto-exposed officials in the administration’s history, and it makes his advocacy less abstract than it might otherwise seem.
Whether you view that as a conflict of interest or proof of conviction probably depends on your priors. Either way, it’s worth noting that the person making the case for government Bitcoin accumulation stands to benefit personally from the policies he’s promoting.
The broader crypto landscape #
Approximately 50 million Americans now own Bitcoin, representing roughly 15% of the US population. Vance’s appearance at Bitcoin 2025 was as much a political signal as a policy statement. Last year, then-candidate Trump made headlines with his own Bitcoin 2024 appearance.
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