US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's annual financial disclosure shows Bitcoin held in a Coinbase wallet. The filing, covering 2025, values the holding somewhere between $16,000 and $65,000.
The disclosure was released by the Office of Government Ethics after a review process that took several months.
Why an Annual Disclosure Exists
The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 requires senior executive branch officials, including cabinet members, to report their assets, income and liabilities every year. The forms deliberately require broad value ranges instead of exact figures, a compromise between public accountability and an official's financial privacy.
Before publication, the document goes through a review by the agency's ethics official, and the Office of Government Ethics gives the final sign-off.
Two Entries in One Wallet
Under "other assets and income," Bitcoin appears as two separate entries inside a single Coinbase wallet: one valued at $15,001-$50,000 and the other at $1,001-$15,000. Combined, that puts the holding at roughly $16,000-$65,000.
Both entries are listed as capital gains income. Disclosure forms require reporting ranges rather than exact figures, so the real value could sit anywhere within those brackets.
No Transaction Above $1,000 All Year
The filing's transactions section, which captures purchases and sales above $1,000, does not mention Bitcoin once. On paper, that means Hegseth neither bought nor sold cryptocurrency above that threshold in 2025.
Mortgages, Cash and Retirement Accounts Beyond Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a small slice of the full picture. The disclosure shows at least $3.1 million in cash, retirement investments and cryptocurrency. Five retirement accounts, held jointly by Hegseth and his wife Jennifer, are invested in index funds and funds run by Avantis, a firm known for low-cost, factor-based ETFs.
The filing also lists three bank cash accounts, one of them worth more than $1 million. In December 2024, when Hegseth filed his disclosure as a nominee, that same account was valued at $15,001-$50,000, though the range format makes a direct comparison impossible.
The liabilities section lists two mortgages on a personal residence, each in the $1,000,001-$5,000,000 range. Hegseth took out the first in 2022, before joining the Pentagon, while the second was signed in 2025, during his time as secretary, at an 8.5% rate.
A Sell-Off of Defense Contractor Stocks
On February 7, 2025, shortly after taking office, Hegseth sold shares of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Honeywell, plus KKR and Blackstone. The Lockheed and Northrop stakes each fell in the $1,001-$15,000 range, and his ethics agreement did not specifically require him to sell those particular holdings.
Why Those Particular Stocks Stood Out
Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Honeywell, KKR and Blackstone are all tied in some way to defense contracts that run through the department Hegseth now leads. Selling those shares right after taking office cuts the risk of a conflict of interest, even where the formal ethics agreement did not force his hand.
Trump's Scale Is a Different Story
In June, President Donald Trump's own disclosure reported more than $50 million in Bitcoin and over $1.2 billion in crypto-related earnings, including $635 million from his own meme coin. Next to that, the defense secretary's holdings look modest.
Another Sign of Crypto's Normalization in Government
Hegseth signed the disclosure in May, an agency ethics official certified it in August, and the Office of Government Ethics finalized it on September 18. Trump's own disclosure already showed that crypto assets have become a routine line item for senior US officials, and the defense secretary's entry simply extends that pattern. For scale, Bitcoin currently trades around $84,000, so even the top end of Hegseth's declared range covers less than a single whole BTC.
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