U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth holds between $16,000 and $65,000 in bitcoin, according to his newly released 2025 annual financial disclosure — though his crypto stash is dwarfed by the $1 million in cash held in his bank account.

Hegseth, who was appointed Defense Secretary in January 2025, detailed the holdings in a filing with the Office of Government Ethics, the agency that oversees ethics rules for the executive branch and reports officials' assets in broad value ranges rather than exact sums — which is why his bitcoin appears as a spread. The document states that his bitcoin is kept in a Coinbase wallet, on the platform of one of the largest US crypto exchanges. Such disclosures are filed annually, so any changes to his bitcoin position will show up in future filings.

The filing also shows that Hegseth and his wife hold retirement accounts containing investments worth roughly $2.05 million to $4.35 million. Among the holdings are exchange-traded funds such as the tech-heavy Invesco QQQ Trust, which tracks the Nasdaq-100, as well as the closed-end fund Apollo Diversified Real Estate Fund. The disclosure additionally lists transactions made by Hegseth, including sales of Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple stock.

The disclosure puts a direct bitcoin holding by a sitting Cabinet secretary on the public record at a time when digital assets are at the center of US policy debates. Hegseth's bitcoin position sits within the most crypto-friendly administration the United States has had. President Donald Trump was backed by prominent figures from the digital asset industry and last month pushed for landmark crypto legislation, the Clarity Act — a bill aimed at setting clearer regulatory rules for digital assets whose progress is being closely watched across the industry — to pass.

Still, Hegseth's crypto holdings are modest compared with those of the Trump family, which has generated billions of dollars from crypto ventures since the president took office. Trump personally disclosed that he made more than $1.4 billion from the family's digital asset ventures, making crypto his largest income source — far ahead of real estate and legal settlements.

According to a Reuters investigation reported this year, Trump's family — including sons Eric and Donald Jr. — made $2.3 billion from four crypto ventures through the end of April 2026.

Critics, including Democrats, have accused Trump of profiting from crypto while shaping policy on it. The White House has consistently denied any conflicts of interest, and Trump has pointed to stock trading by members of Congress, particularly Nancy Pelosi, while calling for a ban on the practice.

This article first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.