Bitcoin Becomes the Wild Card in U.S.-China Trade War Chess Match

As tariffs fly and supply chains buckle, Bitcoin emerges as the unregulated escape hatch—proving once again that finance always finds a backdoor when politics slams the front gates.

Decentralized defiance: While both superpowers tighten capital controls, BTC transactions bypass sanctions and currency wars with cryptographic efficiency. Beijing mines it, Washington tolerates it—and traders exploit the gap.

The cynical truth? When elephants fight, the crypto mice profit. Just don’t expect Wall Street to admit they’re hedging with Satoshi’s invention while publicly dismissing it as a ’Pet Rock asset.’

The strategic Bitcoin gap

With the U.S. already in possession of around 1% of the world’s Bitcoin supply, founder and managing partner at Pantera Capital, Dan Morehead, said the rational step would be for the U.S. to keep growing its Bitcoin reserves, much like how it has long held gold as a reserve asset.

After the U.S. landmark move of establishing a national BTC reserve, Morehead predicts the emergence of a strategic Bitcoin gap, where other countries will compete to build their own national Bitcoin reserve. This, he believes, will be especially true for nations aligned with or threatened by the U.S.-led financial system.

Even countries like China, that remain anti-crypto despite holding $18 trillion worth of seized BTC, could be swayed into adopting a Bitcoin reserve if it meant getting the upper hand over the U.S.

Earlier this month, VanEck’s recent report revealed that China and Russia have been settling select energy transactions using Bitcoin in an effort to shift away from the U.S. dollar-dominated financial system.