Has Bitcoin been captured by politics and institutions?
Sixteen years after its launch, Bitcoin is no longer just a cypherpunk experiment or an anti-establishment asset. In 2025, itâs increasingly rubbing shoulders with politicians, institutions, and Wall Street titans. That shift was on full display at the recent Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, where Cointelegraph was on the ground to capture the mood.In this weekâs episode of Byte-Sized Insight, Cointelegraphâs Gareth Jenkinson explores whether politics and institutions have captured Bitcoin or whether it has simply become too important to ignore.Bitcoin 2025 shiftOnce a Bitcoin-only gathering for hardcore believers, the conference now features prominent political figures such as US Vice President JD Vance, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and a host of institutional investors. Their presence signals a seismic shift: Bitcoin is now firmly in the sights of the political and financial elite.One of the most striking trends to emerge is the rise of Bitcoin treasury companies. Inspired by MicroStrategyâs Michael Saylor, firms like Metaplanet, Twenty One and Nakamoto are now putting Bitcoin on their balance sheets and offering public investors a proxy to BTC exposure through equity markets.Gareth sat down with Dylan LeClair, director of Bitcoin strategy at Metaplanet, which recently became Japanâs most-traded stock by volume and value. Said LeClair:âWe're going all in. We're going to sell our equity, our debt, our chairs, everything to buy more Bitcoin and we're going to not stop. A lot of people said these guys are crazy⌠But there's the Bitcoin base in Japan [which] was super excited because there was nothing like that for them.âBitcoinâs institutional adoption Also featured in the episode is Jack Mallers, the outspoken CEO of Strike and founder of Twenty One, a new Bitcoin treasury company backed by Tether, Softbank, and Cantor Fitzgerald. Mallers welcomed the growing political and institutional attention but emphasized that Bitcoinâs use cases are evolving naturally, from payments to long-term value storage.To gain historical perspective, Gareth also spoke with Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream and creator of Hashcash, the proof-of-work system referenced in the Bitcoin white paper. Back offered a long view on how Bitcoinâs technical and social evolution reflects its increasing global relevance. He offered the idea that institutional adoption is just another use case. âI think it's just new use cases for Bitcoin. Itâs not what they're doing for Bitcoin, but it's what Bitcoin is doing for them that's motivating them.âListen to the full episode of Byte-Sized Insight for the complete interview on Cointelegraphâs Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And donât forget to check out Cointelegraphâs full lineup of other shows! Magazine: US risks being âfront runâ on Bitcoin reserve by other nations â Samson Mow