What does Bitcoin “Power Projection” mean to the U.S. Military?

A notable development has hit the crypto markets. Bitcoin Magazine What does Bitcoin “Power Projection” mean to the U.   On April 21st and 22nd 2026, during a Senate Armed Services Committee, Admiral Samuel Paparo of U. Indo-Pacific Command made comments on Bitcoin’s utility in cybersecurity for the country’s military, calling it a “valuable computer science tool as power projection,” and disclosing that INCOPACOM is running a Bitcoin node in their experiments with the protocol.

   The comments by the INCOPACOM Commander came just days after the Islamic Republic of Iran demanded payment in Bitcoin for safe passage across the Strait of Hormuz. The mention of “power projection” echoed the work of a famous and controversial Bitcoiner, Jason Lowery, author of Softwar: A Novel Theory on Power Projection, MIT Fellow and Special Assistant to the Commander of INDOPACOM.   In his work — which involved an MIT thesis and book expanding on his work — Lowery discussed the cybersecurity value of Bitcoin and its unique ability to deliver “power projection” in cyberspace, a landscape of national security and military operations that otherwise lacks traditional deterrence options.

Market Dynamics

  The book gained significant popularity and earned Lowery both fans and critics across the Bitcoin industry, but was later taken down from distribution by Lowery at the request of his superiors. An event that suggested to some that the book might have something important enough that the U. military wants to keep it quiet.

  But what is this unique value that Bitcoin brings to military matters, and what does “Power Projection” in this context actually mean? According to Department of Defense’s 2002 Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, power projection is; “The ability of a nation to apply all or some of its elements of national power – political, economic, informational, or military – to rapidly and effectively deploy and sustain forces in and from multiple dispersed locations to respond to crises, to contribute to deterrence, and to enhance regional stability. ” In other words, the ability of a nation to influence the behavior of other nations or political entities of interest, at a range beyond its national borders.

Examples can range from diplomatic to economic influence, as well as military capabilities such as long-range missiles, drones or a powerful navy.   The word deterrence is also doing a lot of work here. The DoD defines it as: “The prevention from action by fear of the consequences.

Market Impact

Deterrence is a state of mind brought about by the existence of a credible threat of unacceptable counteraction. ” Lowery brings Bitcoin into the world of deterrence in the physical world by presenting a particularly interesting insight. That just as microchips are essentially wires moving electric power in “encoded logic” inside a computer’s motherboard, so can the globe’s electric grid be seen as a kind of “macrochip”, with giant wires moving large amounts of electricity from power sources across nations and throughout the world.

These macrochips now also have logic gates in the form of Bitcoin mines — Lowery argues — they consume large quantities of energy, converting it into the scarce digital asset, which can be programmed via Bitcoin script.   The Bitcoin macrochip could, in theory, bind cybersecurity matters to the physical world, since energy output is one of the most important and expensive resources a nation can muster. While governments can print paper money at will, summoning massive amounts of electricity to influence something like Bitcoin’s proof of work competition is orders of magnitude more difficult and is the basis of Bitcoin’s resilience.

Bitcoin’s Multisignature Deterrence The most obvious and powerful demonstration of Bitcoin’s “embedded logic” security is the invention of multisignature Bitcoin wallets, which safeguard much of the Bitcoin wealth today.   Multisignature wallets require multiple predefined private keys to sign valid transactions before Bitcoin can be transferred, making it possible to geographically decentralize the storage of Bitcoin private keys across space and jurisdictions.   Multisig challenges hackers not just to hack one key pair, but multiple, across multiple locations under time constraints, since users have the advantage of legitimate access to those keys and can potentially move the bitcoin quickly in response to a threat.

Crypto markets are watching this development closely as investors weigh its potential impact on prices.