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The Trump administration just released its National Security Strategy (NSS) for 2025, and surprisingly, crypto was left out of it. The NSS is one of the most important policy documents expected from the White House. Usually, it outlines how the U.S sees and plans to address global opportunities and threats, while also explaining what tools would be used to protect the country’s interests.
Trump’s decision to leave out crypto from his national security priorities comes as a shock to not just the American crypto community but the global crypto ecosystem. Trump has been very vocal about crypto since his campaign for re-election. He has mentioned on many occasions that he wants the U.S. to be “the global crypto hub,” and this has led to increased adoption of crypto in the country.
As more people start using crypto, the market is changing more quickly than the policies around it. One example is the growing use of wallets that don’t require verification, which many Americans choose because they are easy to set up and use. The popularity of such wallets shows that crypto habits keep changing even when they are not mentioned in official government plans.
In the 2025 NSS, the White House explains that the core and vital interests of the U.S. revolve around quantum computing, AI, and autonomous systems. The 33-page document shows how the Trump administration wants to develop the digital finance sector and maintain America’s financial dominance.
However, the strategy references digital finance in non-crypto terms. It focuses on building international economic systems and maintaining existing payment rails. It doesn’t mention the cryptocurrency market, decentralized networks, Bitcoin, or blockchain, all of which have a combined market capitalization of about $3 trillion. For context, the U.S. economy is about $30 trillion, which is why everyone is shocked that the White House isn’t saying anything about a sector that could affect about 10% of its economy.
This omission is not hard to miss and is particularly surprising because Trump recently mentioned in an address that he doesn’t want China to become the number one country in crypto. Leaving crypto out of his national security priorities now gives China an advantage to lead the global cryptocurrency market.
Also, in pushing for more crypto adoption in the U.S., the Administration has pushed many crypto policies, and a few notable ones include the SEC’s Project Crypto and the GENIUS Act, which regulates stablecoins and helped create a federal crypto task force. This Act is 100% backed by the U.S. dollar and its Treasuries. The President’s crypto agenda has also seen him push for the creation of a strategic crypto reserve.
Many state governments have followed suit, passing bills to allow state agencies to accept crypto payments for taxes and create crypto reserves. Trump’s crypto push has undoubtedly increased the institutional adoption of cryptocurrency as well.
Although this omission comes as a surprise, experts believe that there may be solid reasons behind it. Instead of elevating Bitcoin and other crypto assets to national security, the White House has cautiously decided to keep them under the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and U.S. Treasury. There is also a belief that the White House has decided to use the term “digital finance” to refer to both tokenized and traditional finance systems.
The market has already reacted to the news, with Bitcoin trading below $90,000 when the NSS was made public, and experts believe that there will be more reactions as the crypto industry waits to find out the long-term effect of this omission.
