Bitcoin Forum

It might be tough this year as I don't think Ron Paul is running.  President Obama and other high profile candidates probably don't want the political risk of accepting bitcoins, but if one candidate could do it it would be a publicity boon to the coin.  They are so desperate for money when they campaign that they might just go for it.

I am hereby officially announcing my candidacy for President of the United States as a write in candidate. I accept donations in BitCoins at this address: 1LnfUmmkYjT77PqyKVasADPwPokqwEcLKx (Note: Donations may not be used in ways that directly further my candidacy, unless I can think of some good ones.)

The problem is that bitcoins are pseudo-anonymous and political donations are striclty controlled.

Knowing how money hungry politicians are during campaign time, this might not be an entirely dead idea.

Considering the prospect of hundreds of thousands in potential additional funding, some candidates might be willing to deal with the scrutiny that will fall upon bitcoin after they accept donations in it.

Then again, it could be political suicide at this stage.
How will they convert it to fiat currency to buy ad time etc.?

Reporters will most likely refer to it as money laundering or evil drug schemes based on Silk Road.

If you make bitcoin the official currency of the world then you've got my vote!

I think making bitcoin an 'official currency' would actually be too ironic. But how about this -- my primary platform will be eliminating all legal obstacles, first in the United States and then in the entire world, to using BitCoins for all the things other currencies are used for. I commit specifically to the current protocol and hash chain. (I reserve the right not to commit to accepting Satoshi's key to shut things off.)

It will never happen. Not because its not a good idea, but rather every dollar must be matched with every donor. We dont want undue foreign influence in the political process. Plus it would take a candidate ages to convert the btc into cash. Think about it.  A candidate accepts $1,000,000 and it would take 1000 days to convert the money. By then the election will be over.

I regret to inform you that I will have to withdraw my candidacy for President of the United States of America. Due to certain practical and legal realities, and the failure of my campaign to raise any money despite running for an ENTIRE 12 MINUTES, I am forced to conclude that it's just unrealistic at this time. When America is ready for me, I will still be ready for her. I thank my imaginary supporters for their imaginary support.

The following might be a legal procedure for accepting non-anonymous Bitcoin donations:

1. Donor registers with identity documentation and access to password protected account
2. Donor's Bitcoin address gets verified with a random small 0.000000xx amount of Bitcoin sent to his address and he needs to reply verify amount received by accessing the donor account created in number 1 above.
3. Donor now first send donations through the Bitcoin address verified in no. 2 above to the party registered with in no. 1

This procedure allows for donations that is not anonymous at all, fully declarable, reportable and auditable.

CHALLENGE: get bitcoin (and its foreign exchanges!) to comply with campaign finance law.

no chance.

Oh great thanks for telling me but its a bit late. What am I todo about this JoelKatz for President tatoo?

If it helps, I'm still running in my own mind.

So if I donated lemonade (a good) under reportable identity in South Carolina, the donation in kind (not US$ currency) will not comply with campaign finance, because if I donated bitcoin (a digital cryptography good which can also be used as a commodity currency, or secure login, or secure message sending, or other cryptographic applications) it does not comply with campaign finance law?  When will people get over the novelty of Bitcoin, and realise that a commodity currency needs work, to the full value of the commodity used as an electronic commodity currency, to manufacture.  This is unlike tokens/script/vouchers/promissary notes that does not require work, to the full value of the paper/electronic promise, to be used as a currency.

The raw material for Bitcoins is random 0's and 1's.  A bitcoin is a very special arrangement of these 0's and 1's requiring quite an effort in human effort, time and capital resource effort.  Bitcoins just not just require electricity to be made - it requires the sacrifice of very expensive capital processing power, human effort, maintenance and running costs, and many other production costs involved in digital good manufacturing.

A handmade paper card is worth much more in human effort, time and capital resource effort - than the waste paper it can be manufactured from.

George Carlin was right, we're given the illusion that voting matters, that parties matter, that the silly issues they pump up on TV matter. Just a shell game, boys. You don't control the monetary system, you have no real say in anything. Lobbyists don't get paid in ideals and optimism, they require cold hard cash.

We'll never take the corporate contribution system out of our politics, so why even friggin' bother. Time to route around these parasitic bastards and never look back.

Seriously.

No politician would take bitcoin.  It's a slap in the face to their financial overlords.  If they took BTC in defiance they, like Eliot Spitzer, would be suddenly busted and shamed for sexual shenanigans.

Ron Paul is running but doubt he'll take btc

He would, if you told him it's making the government smaller.

A non-fiat currency not controlled by any central bank? Ron Paul would go apeshit over this.


Politicians only have to report information of donors donating more than $200. So long as they recorded your personal information at the time you made your donation and reported the fair market value of your "gift" (since BTC would be seen as a commodity, not a currency) to the FEC, there should be no issue.

To add to Tymothy's point, the ultimate irony here is that in order for it to be a violation of the FEC regs, the government would have to acknowledge it as MONEY, which given the streisand effect would formally legitimize BTC for world use.

Remember folks, the only thing prohibition achieves is
a) Higher prices
b) Only criminals use the prohibited item, since anyone using the prohibited item is a criminal

Donate your valuable digital goods to your favourite candidate:

Encrypt the wallet.dat file and email the encrypted version to the candidate's campaign address.  Include your contact details for reporting purposes and for password retrieval of the encrypted file.

I would love to see a candidate accept bitcoin-donations but I can already see the headlines:
"******* accepts terrorist-currency donations!"  :-\

Not necessarily. The FEC requires disclosure of non-monetary things as well. So long as the thing has VALUE and is donated to a campaign, it generally needs to be reported, with some select exceptions. If you gave Ron Paul a rides in your private jet for three months to help him get around the country, he has to disclose that and report the value of the flights. So if someone donated 1000 BTC to Ron Paul and it wasn't reported, it could still be a violation of campaign rules even if the FEC didn't acknowledge Bitcoins as money; the FEC would only have to acknowledge Bitcoins as "a thing of value" whose value exceeded reporting requirements.


"(8) (A) The term “contribution” includes—
(i) any gift, subscription, loan, advance, or deposit of money or anything of value made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office;"

I think if you sent the Paul campaign a flash drive to their donation address with a wallet.dat file and a letter explaining what bitcoins were (stressing the fact that it's not backed by the Federal Reserve), the current market value of the bitcoins, your contact information and instructions for installing the client, loading the new wallet file and redeeming them into USDs, they'd probably accept them. There's a chance even that Paul himself might hear about the currency and mention it at a debate.

I don't have Bitcoins to spare, but the address is:

Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Committee
845 Plantation Drive
Clute, TX 77531

What is it with some btc user's self-fulfilling, self-dooming, prophesies?

Bitcoin is but a digital good, owned decentrally, securely, manufactured non-effortlessly, with current liquidity due to widespread demand - thus having currency attributes.  Other uses includes cryptographic applications like encrypting a message VERY, VERY securely to someone sharing a wallet.dat file and using each key in the wallet.dat file as a one-time password; or signing in to a web service securely by sharing a wallet.dat file with the website.  You can even sign something with your wallet.dat keys and it can be publicly authenticated by the bitcoin blockchain that you as key owner/holder has signed it.

I find terrorists generally prefer good old fashioned USD  :P

I think I would have better luck getting candidates to accept Pogs, Pokemon cards, and Magic Cards as campaign donations.

Hell, they'd be more likely to take World of Warcraft money, because that's a huge group of voters and doing so, if legal, wouldn't hurt anyone or be seen as very controversial. Also, they'd appear hip, young, with it, cool, groovy, hep, radical, and bodacious.

There are ways around contribution bookkeeping issues as well, such as donations to fundraisers thrown by 527 groups rather than directly to the candidate (I believe, but could be wrong, that 527s have no rules on who can contribute and have no upper limits). Your money doesn't go to the candidate, but it'll probably "buy" the same amount of money or more at the fundraiser or at least can offset money that the candidate might instead spend.

I predict that the 2020 race will have at least one pseudo-viable candidate accepting bitcoins. Mark it.

I predict that the 2020 race will have at least one artificial candidate (see the lead singer for AKB48) accepting bitcoins.