Germany’s largest opposition force, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), has made a significant move by submitting a Bundestag motion that positions Bitcoin as a strategic technology. The party is urging Berlin to safeguard the protocol and its users from what it terms excessive government and EU control. This motion, titled “Recognizing the Strategic Potential of Bitcoin – Preserving Freedom through Restraint in Taxation and Regulation,” is signed by the AfD parliamentary leadership and spearheaded by MP Dirk Brandes.
In a clear demarcation, the AfD distinguishes Bitcoin from the broader category of “crypto-assets” defined under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. The motion asserts that “Bitcoin is a decentralized, non-manipulable, and limited-supply digital asset, and fundamentally differs by its technical design from other so-called crypto-assets.” The document warns that applying MiCA’s regulatory logic to “an open, decentralized protocol such as Bitcoin” could jeopardize innovation and digital sovereignty, framing excessive regulation as a threat to “financial freedom.”
Germany’s AfD Makes Its Pro-Bitcoin Stand
On the regulatory front, the AfD calls upon the federal government to refrain from imposing licensing or registration requirements for non-custodial Bitcoin activities, explicitly naming self-hosted wallets, Lightning nodes, and infrastructure tools, as long as no customer funds are held in custody.
Tax policy is another focal point of the motion. It demands clear legal protection for Germany’s existing one-year holding period, beyond which private gains are tax-free, and calls for a statutory distinction between Bitcoin and other crypto-assets. Furthermore, it insists that BTC mining and Lightning operations for private purposes should not be classified as commercial activities.
Beyond regulatory and tax initiatives, the AfD is advocating for a formal government strategy paper on Bitcoin’s role as “free, digital money,” exploring its technological, energy, and monetary implications.
The AfD’s communications office is not shying away from a pointed attack on the European Central Bank’s “digital euro” project, portraying BTC as a civil-liberties alternative. In a statement issued on October 23, 2025, Dirk Brandes declared: “Freedom begins with money… The digital euro is nothing more than a tool for surveillance and control – the opposite of freedom. Bitcoin, on the other hand, stands for independence, property, and self-determination.”
This release further urges the government to recognize Bitcoin as a strategic future technology, to build state Bitcoin reserves, to enable pilot projects for BTC payments in the public sector, and to eliminate the tax discrimination of crypto-assets. Brandes concluded, “Germany must finally become an innovation leader in this area – not a surveillance state.”
However, the text of the official Bundestag motion itself maintains a more measured approach. It does not explicitly mandate the immediate accumulation of sovereign Bitcoin reserves or the launch of public-sector Bitcoin payments. Rather, it proposes that Bitcoin should be viewed as “outside money” – a neutral global base layer of value – and indicates that it could be “conceivable” within state reserve management amid monetary and geopolitical uncertainty. The operative demands of the motion focus instead on regulatory restraint, tax clarity, and a comprehensive federal strategy.
In its parliamentary briefing, the AfD succinctly summarizes its goals: to liberate BTC from unnecessary regulatory and tax burdens and to prevent the application of MiCA to a decentralized base protocol.
The political backdrop amplifies the significance of this initiative. Since spring 2025, various national polls indicate that the AfD leads Germany’s political landscape, outpacing both major establishment parties. An April Ipsos survey recorded the AfD at 25%, surpassing the CDU/CSU at 24% and the SPD at 15%.
While these figures represent polling data rather than electoral results, they highlight the AfD’s intensified libertarian, pro-sovereignty messaging, leveraging BTC as a symbol of resistance against state control and a tactical policy tool against establishment parties.
Institutionally, the motion faces significant hurdles. The AfD remains in opposition to the governing grand coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD, led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, confirmed by the Bundestag on May 6, 2025. Without committee majorities or procedural control, the AfD’s proposal is unlikely to progress to a vote in its current form. Nevertheless, several core elements, particularly legal certainty for the one-year tax exemption, may resonate across party lines amid forthcoming MiCA transposition debates.
At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $113,164.
