When Jacob Langenkamp sat down with The Storm Media in Taipei on June 10, he came with a single question prepared — and it wasn't about price charts or crypto markets. It was about survival.
"Can Taiwan's foreign exchange reserves hold up in an extreme scenario?" said Langenkamp, a researcher at the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) and former U.S. Department of Defense official with over a decade of active-duty and civilian service. He is also the founder and CEO of Bridger Bitcoin, a mining company. He made the visit alongside BPI Managing Director Conner Brown.
His answer, developed over months of cross-strait research, is that Taiwan's current reserve strategy has two structural vulnerabilities — and that Bitcoin is the only asset designed to address both.
One Word Heard Across the Political Divide
To build his case, Langenkamp said he deliberately sought out voices from across Taiwan's political spectrum. On cross-strait policy, those conversations went in sharply different directions. But one word came up every time, regardless of where the speaker stood.
"Resilience is a goal everyone agrees on," he said.
That consensus, in his view, is precisely where Bitcoin's case for Taiwan begins — not as a speculative asset, but as a strategic one.
What Taiwan's Central Bank Says — And Why Langenkamp Disagrees
Before laying out his argument, Langenkamp acknowledged the institutional headwinds. In December 2025, Taiwan's central bank submitted a formal written report to legislators, concluding that Bitcoin falls short on liquidity, carries price and cybersecurity risks, and has been broadly rejected by major central banks worldwide. The European Central Bank, the Swiss National Bank, and the U.S. Federal Reserve have all expressed opposition or reservations. The Bank for International Settlements, the IMF, and the World Bank have similarly concluded that Bitcoin does not yet qualify as a reserve asset. A 2025 survey by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) found that 93 percent of central banks have no intention of holding digital assets.
Langenkamp does not dispute these findings. But he argues they address the wrong question — because they evaluate Bitcoin against peacetime standards, not crisis ones.
Two Ways a Reserve Can Fail Under Blockade
His analytical framework centers on two distinct failure modes that conventional reserves face when geopolitical conditions deteriorate.
The first is physical. Gold is a reliable store of value in stable times, but in a blockade or invasion scenario, its physical properties become a liability rather than an asset. "It's not just that it can't be moved," Langenkamp said. "It becomes a target to be seized."
The second is institutional. Taiwan holds more than $600 billion in foreign exchange reserves, most of it deposited in offshore financial institutions. In a severe geopolitical crisis, those institutions would face legal, political, and reputational pressures from multiple directions. "I don't think Taiwan can predict how other countries, companies, or financial institutions would respond in that scenario," he said. "That uncertainty itself is a structural weakness."
Bitcoin, he argues, is engineered around both of those failure points. It has no physical form and cannot be confiscated. Transactions settle peer-to-peer without requiring authorization from any intermediary. "As long as you have an internet connection, you can move billions of dollars in ten minutes with settlement finality, without requiring approval from any third party," he said.
How to Start: A Cautious, Budget-Neutral Path
When Storm Media pressed on how Taiwan should actually begin building a Bitcoin reserve, Langenkamp's first principle was unambiguous: security before scale. "You absolutely cannot make a mistake in acquiring or custodying Bitcoin," he said. "If you do, the consequences are catastrophic."
He outlined several budget-neutral acquisition approaches: allowing taxpayers to settle tax obligations in Bitcoin and retaining those holdings directly; offering tax incentives to Bitcoin companies in exchange for incremental revenue; and converting a very small fraction of existing gold or foreign exchange reserves into Bitcoin over time.
He pointed to two international reference points. The Czech National Bank began with a limited allocation, then tested it analytically — modeling what portfolio impact a Bitcoin addition would produce — before making further decisions. El Salvador took a different approach, purchasing one to ten Bitcoin per day in small but consistent increments. "The advantage of that is it spreads out your entry points, gives you a more averaged purchase price, and avoids short-term volatility," he said.
"Nothing should be rushed," Langenkamp said. "But you can get there slowly, over time."
First-Mover Advantage: The Position Is Still Open
Why not wait for more certainty? Langenkamp reached back into monetary history for his answer.
Britain established the gold standard before any rival, and leveraged that position to build a global empire. Countries that moved late — remaining on silver — saw their economies weakened as a result. Langenkamp believes Bitcoin's first-mover dynamics follow the same logic. "So far, we have not seen any middle power truly step up on Bitcoin," he said. "That position is still available."
According to CoinGecko data from June 2026, thirteen governments currently hold Bitcoin, with a combined total of 619,463 coins. The United States leads with 329,693, followed by China with 190,000 and the United Kingdom with 61,245. Taiwan's current holdings of 210 coins are effectively invisible on that list — but Langenkamp sees that differently: it means the window for a middle power to establish a meaningful strategic position has not yet closed.
His recommended sequence is deliberate: establish a regulatory framework first, develop custody standards second, then build an acquisition strategy incrementally. "This is a very prudent path," he said, "one that allows a country to build long-term success and resilience."
The Window That Closes When Crisis Begins
The timing of this interview carries its own context. The week before it took place, the Legislative Yuan's Finance Committee completed a preliminary review of the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) bill — moving Taiwan toward a licensing regime for digital asset operators and establishing issuance standards for stablecoins. The regulatory groundwork Langenkamp describes as a prerequisite is no longer just a policy recommendation in Taiwan. It is active legislation.
Langenkamp returned to that point at the close of the interview. The current period of relative stability, he said, is the window during which Taiwan can build institutional knowledge, establish custody standards, and accumulate a small strategic position without urgency or external pressure. Once a crisis begins, that calculus changes entirely.
"Once a crisis begins, there's nothing you can do," he said. Once the window closes, it does not reopen.
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