A Filing Shows That Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Keeps Bitcoin in a Coinbase Wallet

Pete Hegseth Discloses Bitcoin Held in a Coinbase Wallet Worth About $16,000 to $65,000

A Bitcoin Holding Reported in Ranges, Not Trades

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listed Bitcoin held in a Coinbase wallet in his latest annual financial disclosure for 2025, released by the Office of Government Ethics. The disclosure places the combined value of the cryptocurrency between roughly $16,000 and $65,000, using two entries rather than a single total figure.

The two entries appear under "other assets and income" inside a single Coinbase wallet. One is valued at between $15,001 and $50,000; the other at between $1,001 and $15,000. Because financial disclosure forms report ranges instead of exact balances, the filing does not show how much Bitcoin Hegseth holds to the dollar. Both entries list the income type as capital gains.

The transaction section, which captures purchases and sales above $1,000 during the reporting period, contains no Bitcoin trades. On the face of the filing, Hegseth did not buy or sell Bitcoin above that threshold across the year. The record lists holdings without showing Bitcoin activity above the reporting cutoff.

The Crypto Entry Sits Inside a Multi-Million-Dollar Portfolio

The Bitcoin disclosure is only one part of a broader asset picture. The filing shows at least $3.1 million in cash, retirement investments and Bitcoin. Hegseth and his wife Jennifer are listed with five retirement accounts holding index and Avantis funds.

The disclosure also lists three U.S. bank cash accounts, one of them worth more than $1 million. That account was the filing's sharpest change. CNBC noted that an account under the same description held between $15,001 and $50,000 in Hegseth's December 2024 nominee disclosure. Because disclosures use ranges, and the new filing gives no upper bound for that account, the two filings cannot be compared as simple totals.

Stock Sales, Not Crypto Trades, Dominated the Transaction Log

The most active transactions in Hegseth's 2025 disclosure were sales of individual stocks after he took office in January 2025. On February 7, he sold holdings in Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Honeywell, all defense contractors, along with KKR and Blackstone. The Lockheed and Northrop stakes were each in the $1,001 to $15,000 range. His ethics agreement did not specifically require him to sell them.

Six weeks later, Hegseth sold a broader list of individual stocks including Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle and Visa. Across 2025, he bought index funds instead. The transaction log shows a shift from individual stock positions toward more diversified holdings, while the Bitcoin entry remained unchanged.

Mortgages and Certification Dates Complete the Filing

On the liability side, the disclosure lists two mortgages on a personal residence, each in the $1,000,001 to $5,000,000 range. One mortgage was taken out in 2022 and the other in 2025 at an interest rate of 8.5%.

Hegseth signed the report in May. An agency ethics official certified it in August, and the Office of Government Ethics certified it on September 18. The certification timeline shows the disclosure moved through ethics review after the reporting period.

A Small Bitcoin Position Compared With Trump's Crypto Disclosures

Hegseth's reported crypto holding is modest next to the administration's most prominent crypto holder. President Donald Trump's own disclosure in June reported more than $50 million in Bitcoin and over $1.2 billion in earnings from crypto ventures, including $635 million from his meme coin.

The contrast helps place the Defense Secretary's filing in context: the record confirms a Coinbase-held Bitcoin position worth roughly $16,000 to $65,000, but it does not show Bitcoin trades above the $1,000 reporting threshold, and it sits within a portfolio dominated by retirement accounts, cash and individual stock sales.