The military's interest in virtual currency is part of an overall effort by special operations forces to understand how their enemies finance themselves, and what intelligence special operators can glean by following the illicit money.

"We're trying to do our best to understand the true scope of the threat that we are dealing with," said a defense official who attended the meeting. "We have to fully understand all of the components and functions of the adversary across the globenot just in Syria and Iraqand the manner in which those adversaries raise, hide and move money."

Defense officials said ISIS is part of a global dark network on the Internet that is involved in the use of virtual currencyalthough ISIS itself is "principally funded through means other than virtual currency."

The invitation-only event, called simply the "Virtual Currency Workshop," was held at an office building in downtown Tampa near MacDill Air Force Base where Special Operations Command is based, and it included a meet-and-greet cocktail party at the Marriott Waterside Hotel & Marina on Sunday evening.

It was organized by a little-known but highly influential group called Business Executives for National Security, which facilitates connections between American business leaders and the U.S. military.

The group's members include a who's who of America's corporate and financial elite, according to its website, including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg and David Koch of Koch Industries.

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"We sort of like to fly below the radar," said Susan Maybaumwisniewski, senior vice president for projects at Business Executives for National Security. She said her group has organized previous sessions for U.S. Special Operations Command, putting industry experts in front of American war fighters.

Previous topics have included capital markets and mobile banking. Maybaumwisniewski said the virtual currency event Monday was not specifically focused on ISIS, but rather a long-planned opportunity for the business community to brief the military on virtual currencies.

Among the roughly 100 attendees at the event, said several participants, were business executives and specialists in financial payment processing, experts in bitcoin operations, Silicon Valley executives, representatives from the U.S. Treasury and Department of Homeland Security, as well as members of the U.S. intelligence community.

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Special Ops grill bitcoin for its terror fight