The U.S. State Department is launching the Freedom Tech Excellence Program, naming the Bitcoin Policy Institute, Palantir, Anduril, and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation as founding partners. The initiative treats Bitcoin and encryption as tools to advance digital freedom and counter surveillance abroad.
A Bitcoin advocacy group is joining the U.S. State Department’s push on digital freedom abroad. The department is launching the Freedom Tech Excellence Program, naming the Bitcoin Policy Institute, data-analytics firm Palantir Technologies, defense-technology company Anduril Industries, and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation as founding partners.
The partners will work with the department on online surveillance, encryption, AI governance, and free expression online. According to the program’s stated goals, participants will focus on five priority areas: First Amendment protections in the digital age; countering unlawful digital surveillance and online scams; privacy-enhancing technologies such as strong encryption and VPNs; responsible governance of emerging technologies including AI; and safeguarding children and other users online.
Why a Bitcoin group sits at the table
The Bitcoin Policy Institute’s inclusion signals how the department views Bitcoin as a tool to circumvent censorship and financial surveillance in authoritarian states. That case leans on blockchain technology, a theme the group has long championed in its advocacy work.
Under the program, private sector personnel embed inside the State Department through limited-term assignments, on temporary placements tasked with shaping diplomatic efforts around specific digital freedom issues.
A wider pro-crypto turn
The move fits a broader shift in Washington. Trump campaigned to help the crypto space, and since taking office his government has taken a more pro-crypto approach to both regulating the sector and folding parts of it into his administration.
That approach already changed how the government holds the asset. In March 2025, Trump signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a separate U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, capitalized with roughly 200,000 Bitcoin already held through criminal and civil forfeiture.
The order framed Bitcoin alongside strategic reserves the U.S. maintains for materials like gold, petroleum, and pharmaceuticals, treating it as a scarce national asset rather than merely a speculative one.
Source: Bitcoin Magazine
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