Bitcoin Goes to Washington
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Last week, the 2025 Bitcoin Policy Summit took place in Washington, D.C., organized by the Bitcoin Policy Institute.
This was a different kind of bitcoin conference, one where the dominant themes weren’t price, speculation, or hype, but policy, statecraft, and long-term strategic planning. The tone was serious. The participants were credible. And the conversation reflected a growing recognition: bitcoin is no longer fringe.
Here are the key takeaways
Concept to Implementation: Strategic Bitcoin Reserves
The “SBR” concept, initially floated as a thought experiment over a year ago, is now a formal legislative proposal, supported by an Executive Order from the President of the United States.
At the summit, BPI unveiled its State-Level Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Toolkit. The document lays out the legal, operational, and custodial framework for states to acquire and manage bitcoin as a treasury asset.
Multi-institution custody (MIC) is central to the proposal, offering a fault-tolerant architecture with no single point of failure, designed for cold storage, geographic redundancy, and long-term resilience.
This isn’t just theoretical, several states are actively reviewing the blueprint.
Legislative Progress Is Accelerating
Senators Cynthia Lummis and Marsha Blackburn provided updates on multiple bills moving through Congress. The GENIUS Act, passed by the Senate, marks the first piece of legislation to emerge from the Banking Committee in nearly a decade. A broader market structure bill is advancing as well, with bipartisan support and significantly more rigor than 2024’s FIT21 bill.
Bitcoin as a Fiscal Hedge
Economists Josh Hendrickson and Will Luther presented a sobering overview of the U.S. fiscal outlook. Debt-to-GDP has returned to post-WWII levels, without the wartime justification, and the structural drivers of spending are largely untouchable. In this context, bitcoin offers an alternative. Strategic bitcoin reserves won’t fix the problem alone, but they can help restore fiscal discipline and capacity over time without relying on monetary debasement or financial repression.
The American Bitcoin Advantage
River CEO Alex Leishman presented compelling data on bitcoin ownership in the U.S., including:
40% of all bitcoin holdings reside in America
95% of public company BTC holdings belong to U.S. firms
80% of ETF assets are held domestically
Over half of the top 25 hedge funds and RIAs have exposure via spot ETFs
Bitcoin is becoming a widely held, institutionally accessible monetary asset, with most of its infrastructure anchored in the United States. There is growing recognition that America has a significant advantage with respect to bitcoin, and we cannot afford to squander our lead relative to global players.
U.S. Bitcoin Ownership Is Widespread and Values-Driven
In a panel led by Troy Cross, research showed 18.6% of Americans own bitcoin, with ownership cutting across demographics. Holders tend to value economic freedom, transparency, and utility, driven more by trust in bitcoin than political affiliation. Adoption increasingly reflects personal financial conviction, not ideology.
Bitcoin Goes Global: Sovereign Exposure Accelerates
Sarah Kreps (Director, Cornell Brooks Tech Policy Institute) presented new data showing 32 countries with active or exploratory sovereign bitcoin exposure, including reserves, mining, pensions, and tax strategies.
The message: bitcoin is fast becoming a strategic asset in global economic planning.
National Security and Energy Policy
Patrick Witt, Deputy Director of the White House Council on Digital Assets, emphasized the role of bitcoin within a broader industrial and strategic policy framework: digital infrastructure, resilient compute, and global capital market access. As the U.S. reevaluates its competitive positioning, bitcoin is now part of the national security and industrial base discourse.
Custody Standards Are Evolving
One of the most important moments of the summit came during a fireside chat between BPI’s Zack Shapiro and SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce.
Shapiro laid out the logic behind bitcoin-native custody frameworks like multi-institution custody, highlighting their inherent advantages over legacy models that rely on a single “qualified custodian.” Commissioner Peirce’s response was measured but encouraging: she acknowledged that custody models grounded in the protocol’s design may in fact offer stronger guarantees than incumbent structures.
This is a critical development. As regulatory thinking matures, there’s growing recognition that secure bitcoin custody doesn’t need to conform to legacy molds, it can (and should) align with the properties of the asset itself.
Broader Reflections
Bitcoin is being discussed not as a speculative instrument, but as a monetary tool, strategic reserve asset, and infrastructure layer.
MIC is emerging as the most robust standard for bitcoin custody and being formalized in public policy frameworks.
U.S. fiscal policymakers are acknowledging that existing debt trajectories are unsustainable—and that bitcoin could play a constructive role.
Bitcoin adoption continues to broaden, not just institutionally, but demographically.
The conversation in D.C. is no longer about whether bitcoin survives—it’s about how to integrate it safely, securely, and strategically.
Policy is often slow to catch up to innovation, but the gap is narrowing. Bitcoin is being taken seriously at the highest levels of economic, technological, and geopolitical planning.
Custody, governance, and strategic reserve policy are now in focus. The frameworks are being written. And Onramp is helping shape the next chapter, one where bitcoin becomes a foundational component of institutional portfolios, public balance sheets, and long-term planning.
Chart Of The Week
"The USD has now lost more than 10% of its value this year, its worst first half in almost 40 years."
Quote of the Week
“Mental flexibility may be the most valuable attribute of the great investors."
“I don’t think we can afford to ignore it [bitcoin] anymore.”
— Philippe Laffont, Founder of Coatue Management
Podcast Of The Week
Bitcoin For Professionals: From Fiat to Faith: How Bitcoin Helped Me Reclaim My Religious Values
This week, we sit with Abubakar Nur Khalil for powerful conversation exploring how Bitcoin reshaped his life, financially and spiritually. We cover why Bitcoin aligns with Islamic values and ethics, how Bitcoin became a tool for self-discovery and purpose, the flaws in fiat and Islamic banking systems, and how Nigerian resistance to CBDCs highlights Bitcoin’s strength.
Subscribe to Onramp MENA’s YouTube channel to catch new episodes of the Bitcoin For Professionals podcast!
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