Bitcoin Forum

Thought some may be interested. This is their initial response to my inquiry:


Edit: Tradehill informs you can now donate to Ron Paul through their site!

Donated 2 BTC.

Disclaimer: I'm a left-leaning Independent who has voted "D" my whole life. Getting politicians to accept bitcoins, even circuitously, would be a huge step forward for the currency. Ron Paul is the most obvious in-point because of his policy positions.

Edit 2: Tradehill reconsiders, pulls donation option and returns funds

no surprise

How much paint you gotta huff to think that a presidential candidate would accept a  semi-anonymous crypto-currency for their presidential campaign?

The good news is that Bitcoin is first on that list

What's the FEC have to say about this?

Interestingly enough, if I donate more than $200 in USD Big Brother gets another little tidbit of information on me, but if I sent $200 in BTC and proxy it through Tradehill it's anonymous.

Cool.

Is this just starting today? If so, I'll bug other campaigns. Might get some more CNN spots out of it. :)

But then people find out, they launch an FEC investigation and he ends up giving your coins to charity and bitcoins get in the news "new crypto currency used to subvert our elections laws,  time to ban bitcoin?" and then bitcoin plummets to zero and self destructs and a bunch of angry miners are seen in teh streets looking for some guy named iamzill.


Not really a future I want to see.

Lightning rod in a storm!

Isn't this blatantly against the rules?  You're not allowed to contribute on behalf of others.  It's probably no different than, say, selling your vote to the highest bidder on eBay.  You could probably expect the same kind of exposure as this: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/09/politics/uwire/main4005093.shtml

Very bad idea if you want to be viewed as a legal bitcoin exchange!

I do STRONGLY object to this! Firstly it seems to be against regulations ("3. I am making this contribution with my own personal funds, and I will not be reimbursed by anyone for this contribution."), secondly the description is misleading (you do NOT donate BTC, you donate USD which you convert somehow before - there is NO mention at which exchange rate you plan to do this for example) and thirdly I have a personal problem with companies potentially supporting any political party in some weird oversea country. It is my belief that if you want to support someone, you should vote - not "donate"!

This is totally unrelated. That story involves selling votes. In this case Tradehill is acting as a sort-of bundler which is how a significant plurality of campaign funds are obtained.

I assume Tradehill simply sells the bitcoins at market value and sends that value, but I'd like that in writing. Transferring my BTC to Tradehill to donate now.

Jered, you've made the mistake of assuming all your customer's share a similar set of political beliefs.

I just withdrew the last of my dwolla and btc from your site and will not be returning.

Oddly enough I was willing to put up with the growing pains you had when dealing with bank transfers but this kind of thing is too much.

Whatever. Bitcoins to politicians is an important step for bitcoin.

Please describe the difference between a "sort-of bundler" and a straw donor.

Funny how these ridiculous laws only fuck the people wanting to do something new and interesting, and don't at all stop the mass corruption of government by lobbyists and corporations

All in all:
You can NOT donate BTC directly to this guy!

Just do an instant-sell with your BTC and donate USD, like Tradehill would most likely do anyways (or not, they could also just donate 1 USD per BTC donated... or just keep the BTC, as direct BTC donations are NOT possible at all, which can easily be verified on that guy's website) if you feel the need to.

I find it VERY strange and disturbing to see donations to a foreign politician on a bitcoin exchange site, especially right next to a non-political humanitarian organization like the red cross!

Oddly enough, Wikipedia has multiple entries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_in_the_United_States#Bundling

Considering Ron Paul's views on the US dollar and related institutions, it is not at all strange or disturbing.

But will he cash the check? I don't see how he can. Surely an opponent would just *love* to catch him breaking campaign finance regulations.

This is Trade Hill being irresponsible, not a good idea for TH and not a good idea for bitcoin. Why not put an ad for Silk Road on your site at the same time?

They already link to several Ponzi sites anyways (a lot of broken links though), silkroad would be a nice addition...!

https://www.tradehill.com/Support/Bitcoin
at the bottom at
Do you have any links to other Bitcoin sites?

Seriously, I don't know or care about any political views of Tradehill operators or anyone else for that matter. Keep your US presidential election stuff out of my money sphere and donate privately if you feel the need to.

I personally accept BTC donations by the way, feel free to put me up on that donation page instead! :P

Edit:
The EFF also for quite some time does no longer accept BTC donations - where exactly does this money go?

Bad TradeHole. Trying to act like Ron Paul would accept Bitcoins through your site.  He is in no way affiliated with you and stated that he doesn't accept Bitcoins.

"Ron Paul's Presidential Campaign Now Accepts Bitcoins through Tradehill!"

That quote is not in any way true.  Shame on you.  I'm a Ron Paul supporter, but I won't be using your exchange because doing things like this shows that you can't be trusted.

Does really Americas last hope for non-violent change is in old man who might die soon? And the dumb majority of voters still can wote some monkey-man as president again and again. I know about Ron Paul but he looks more like a false hope figure than real revolutionary.

They're complete opposites.

A straw donor gives a small donation for which they are reimbursed by another person. The idea is to conceal the true source of the donation and it only makes sense if the actual donor could not donate for some reason. The straw donor makes possible a donation that would otherwise be illegal (and hence still is). The point of straw donors is that you have a lot of them, allowing one person to make an otherwise illegal large donation.

A bundler or "sort-of bundler" collects many small donations from a number of donors and bundles them into one large donation. The idea is to save the campaign from the hassle of collecting a large number of small donations. A bundler simply makes it more convenient for a large number of people to donate to a campaign. The point of a bundler is that you have few of them, allowing many people to make legal small donations efficiently.

Assuming it would be lawful for me to cash in my bitcoins myself and give the money to Ron Paul, it should be legal for me to employ TradeHill to do it for me. Note that I say "should be". Election law is a very complex beast.

So you're implying that TradeHill will be verifying that all bitcoin donations are coming from US Citizens?

So you're implying the US recognizes bitcoins as legal tender?

Maybe the superpac would take them?  http://www.revolutionpac.com/ (http://www.revolutionpac.com/)


But yeah,  this thread title and action are more likely to do him more harm then good in the current legal climate.

I'll be donating to Ron with bitcoins and I suggest everyone here do the same. That will make a name for bitcoin, if Ron gets 1 million donations in bitcoin!

That begs the question to what extent do traditional bundlers verify the identity and eligibility of donors.  Would they typically accept cash donations?

This is probably the way to go. Individual donations to the campaign max out at $2,500, however SuperPAC's are not bound to maximum donations. The Revolution SuperPAC has a top-notch Board of Directors ready to hit the ground running. It shouldn't be a problem at all if someone like TradeHill collects donations and writes one check for the Revolution SuperPAC.

For those saying that private organizations shouldn't be involved in the political process...why wouldn't a company, such as a Bitcoin exchange, want to support a candidate who endorses and actively supports competing currencies and the elimination of legal tender laws? That just sounds like good business to me ;)

The US doesn't have any hope for non-violent change. The best, I believe, RP could do is delay the day of reckoning by 8 or 10 years - and this isn't really an ideal scenario. The worst RP could do is be in office during the collapse: "Economy collapses under libertarian president" - the statists would love this. The single greatest opportunity to eliminate libertarian philosophy for the next several generations. I think they are willing to trade 4-8 years for another 50.

RP's age is not the reason to be against him. The fact that he "might die" is also irrelevant. as many not-so-old presidents have died while in office for a variety of reasons.

I don't support RP (I used to), but I do support the libertarian philosophy that he espouses.

The state is institutionalized force, and libertarianism is a philosophy of non-violence. These are mutually exclusive concepts. They are not compatible. You cannot infiltrate the state and turn it into a something virtuous. If this were possible, start with something small, like the mafia and try turning it into a charity. Libertarianism has historically been a failure because all libertarians have done is trim the leafs and branches of the tree of statism, and not the root: the belief that the state is moral; the belief that violence can achieve good, and that social problems can be solved with bullets.

He too often uses the constitution as an appeal to authority, rather than first principles. Maybe he does this because, for the general public, the constitution is more palatable, but I've never heard him admit this.

RP is a great educator, but he doesn't apply his conclusions about the state to all fictitious institutions (namely religion).

I also was a fan of RP until I watched an interview in which he denied evolution.  (And I might point out that he is a medical doctor.)

To disreguard everything else someone says because they don't believe in evolution is pretty lame.

I'm not religious at all but I don't even know if I believe in evolution.  Its a nice theory.

As far as this thread, I think the title is misleading and should be changed. 

I'm hardly an expert in US election finance law, but my understanding is that this is not TradeHill's responsibility. When you write a check to a candidate to donate to their campaign, does your bank ensure you can legally donate to the campaign? If you FedEx the donation, does FedEx check that? TradeHill is just acting as the donor's agent, just like other bundlers do.

But the simple fact that the money is being delivered to the bundler in the form of a check gives the bundler some clue as to the identity of the donor, or at the least in what nation they bank.  Could a bundler accept a cash donation?

I don't think BusmasterDMA is rejecting everything he says. He is merely stating that he was an RP fan up until that point. When RP arbitrarily rejects evolution, he rejects the scientific method. But then he uses the scientific method when explaining economics and the morality of the state.  

The general public throws the word "theory" around as if it means the same thing as opinion or personal preference. It does not. Theory has a very strong meaning scientifically, and has a very high barrier to entry. So when people say that something is "a nice theory," or is "just a theory" it's an attempt to undermine science and the scientific method.

+1

TY, well said.  I still share many common philosophies with Paul.  I just don't hold him quite as high in esteem as I did prior to having seen that interview.

I don't tend to put all my faith in science.  Lots of things that were "facts" when I was a kid have been proven wrong and replaced with a new "fact", how many things that you believe as fact today will be proven wrong tomorrow?  Is there even a scientific method when it comes to the theory of evolution? or is it just darwins little drawing? <-- this is a serious question actually.

Peace
MIke

EDIT: I probably wont reply to anyone who answers for the simple fact that I don't want to keep bumping this thread.

I'm going to let this go too, since a discussion on the merits of evolution and science in general is well outside the scope of this thread.

I'm still interested in determining whether or not a US political candidate or PAC can legally receive anonymous contributions.  To me this seems no trivial matter, either way.

He'll get 0 Bitcoins in donations, all he gets is some USD. He won't ever know/care they came from bitcoin donations.

Can we please get back to topic here?!

It's not about any political views, votability or anything else - this thread is about tradehill LYING and saying you can donate for some Republican candidate via BTC while all they (maybe) do is collect BTC, cash them in and send a check claiming it's just from them (everything else would be illegal) which is lying.

Unfortunately because of this I will no longer be doing business with Tradehill. Up until now I have had the utmost respect for the way they have run their business and how they have been open and forthright with information. I cannot, however, in good faith continue to do business with a politically slanted exchange. While I am sure there are many RP supporters on this forum, there are still a number of people who use bitcoin that are not. Bitcoin != Libertarianism, and the more you try to make it so, the more you push away the mainstream.

So you are using your own political bias to hate on someone else's political preference? It is not like he is forcing every customer to donate an amount. Why wouldn't you just commend his open and honest nature? Do you really like businesses and politicians that just tell you whatever they think you want to hear? Or any amount of truth or fact once in a while?

There's a difference between voicing an opinion somewhere and (ab-)using your own business to do politics. Tradehill has a lot of customers that are NOT in the US and for whom it is illegal to donate to Ron Paul.

In the end discussions here are pointless. All that needs to be done is to send Mr. RP a (few) mail(s) with links to the "donation" page at tradehill. I hope his team is not that stupid to take donations that might get Mr. Paul in a lot of trouble. Also you could send this to a few "real" newspapers/media companies and tell them that Mr. Paul might get some illegal donations. This might harm him probably much more than those few USD help.

I thought they were running an exchange, not a PAC. And I cannot guarantee that my transaction fees are not being put in with those donations. Since this business openly supports a candidate that I do not, I will not conduct any further transactions with it. Plain and simple.

Oh, and the FEC takes a real dim view of foreign based businesses donating to presidential candidates. I would hate to have my money tied up somewhere like that when the legal troubles start. The US does have an extradition treaty with Chile.

Using the anonymous currency to donate to charity is a way to know for sure that you're money is being received by the receiver. If Haiti took Bitcoin donations we would know for sure that most of it arrived without administration, third party, corruption fees.

Donating anonymously to political protagonists, while not without faults(if you can do it, so can the opposition), is another one of Bitcoin's great features. No one plays fair with such high stakes. Fair is just an out side illusion. If you are serious enough about winning, this is one for the war chest.

When you donate  to TH fro RP with Bitcoins, we can all check and see exactly how much was donated to that address. However, I dont know how we would verify if that same amount was sent to the intended destination or not. Many details unknown.

should give the option to donate to anyone running, not because i support any of them, i doubt anyone who gets elected will do any real good- things will just be a bit different. i don't like the idea of favortism.... so i won't be using tradehill anymore as well

That's the thing:
You have NO IDEA how much is donated, to which address of by whom: Tradehill will just cash out your donation in USD, RP EXPLICITLY mentions no donations in bitcoin are allowed!

That's uhh... kind of the definition of science. Science is a quest for knowledge, which is ever more refined. The most exciting times in science are those days when something we knew for a fact yesterday turns out to be wrong.

There is scientific support for much of the theory of evolution - we can observe many things in nature and in the lab that lend support to it (such as the bacteria in a lab experiment which was frozen at different generations, and spontaneously evolved to eat a new kind of food - they can unfreeze any of that same generation and they will repeatedly keep evolving in the expected way if the circumstances are kept the same).

The fact that Ron Paul, a doctor, puts his personal religion before this rudimentary understanding* is disheartening... it doesn't fully disqualify him from leadership, because unlike much of the religious right his position is averse to allowing religion to enter into politics. It just doesn't look that good on him.


I take it you never shop at Home Depot, Target, Walmart... and you choose your toilet paper really carefully? Almost every company out there has some kind of political slant. The political slant isn't what's wrong with this, the fact that they've not (I don't believe) reasonably demonstrated they're even allowed to do this is where the issue lies.

Actually I don't usually shop in those places. I tend to use either smaller locally based businesses or online shopping as much as possible. And I never use any Georgia-Pacific/Dixie products either. Granted sometimes I need something immediately that only one of the big box stores can fill...but none of them have a place on the pinpad when checking out to donate to a specific candidate. If they did something that obvious they would lose a lot more customers (if it were legal, and I don't think it is.)

I thought he was joking in the last thread  ???

https://www.tradehill.com/WithdrawOverview/BTC

Wow...

   

Tradehill needs to clear up some questions, but this is a really good start. Just because he gets USD, doesn't mean he doesn't know it's from the bitcoin community. Even if he ends up returning the donations, this is a very positive message for the bitcoin community to send Washington. This is the kind of thing that will enable bitcoins longevity.

There is a lot of precedent for this kind of donation bundling. However, because bitcoins aren't recognized by the government as money, a lot of campaign laws are a big question mark. People claiming it's against the law need to show some JDs. The Ron Paul campaign's initial response to me points to a lack of legal understanding by the FEC, "it would probably confuse the FEC".

I find it weird that you need to hand your politicians money to send positive signals, but that's not my business/country luckily.

Anyways, according to http://www.ronpaul2012.com/acceptable-donation-methods/:

Tradehill DOES get reimbursed in bitcoins for these donations, they are a corporation and direct Bitcoin donations are out of question.
If Jered does donate as a private person, he still breaks rule #3 by being reimbursed and not using just his own money to pay.

All in all I would find it weird if I shop at Amazon for example and then get asked if I want gift wrapping and/or donate to a presidential candidate. Seriously, if you want to have donations, by all means do so if you can't help it, but do it on a clearly seperated page, not directly above Red Cross and EFF (who no longer accept Bitcoin donations btw.).

Especially since there are only 2 big parties in the US of A I find it quite weird from a business perspective to screw with the political opinion of ~50% of your US customers and 100% of your foreign ones.

So you don't seem to get that in the eyes of the law, BTC isn't money. What's up with that?

So if you hand me 1000 Bitcoins and I convert them to USD and donate 10 000 USD I did not get reimbursed? What about gold then? Dwolla? Euros? These are all not allowed as donations but are all possible reimbursements!


Hell, if someone values tomatoes a lot and promises to donate 100 USD for every tomato I send by mail, he still gets reimbursed for that money and wouldn't have donated without me sending a tomato in the first place!

Bitcoins do not have intrinsic value. There, you are wrong. Resolving this argument is not possible without lots of lawyers so I suggest you get whatever candidate, in whatever country you prefer to accept bitcoins and stop hating on progress.

The argument that "BTC isn't money" for the sake of the FEC would be viewed as nonsense in any US court.

Who said a distributed currency wouldn't change the world... I mean, we're at least giving corporations and the well-off new methods to buy the US government! :p

(I'm just joking, don't take this as flamebait please, I'm not necessarily against this initiative, it does however give an interesting look into what a world with anonymous distributed currencies looks like)

I've been a huge Ron Paul supporter - remember that story last campaign season about how Ron Paul received more donations from people employed by the military than any other Republican candidate?  That was me, based on a post I made on facebook that was turned into a blog post that exploded on Digg overnight.  I also helped set up the speech he gave to a few thousand people on my campus.  I worked with his official campaign on some stuff for a while too.

Anyways, I definitely not like this.  I haven't done business with Tradehill and will not even consider it now.  Not only do I not like the partisan aspect of it, but there is no real way of knowing how much is actually going to Ron Paul's campaign and how much Tradehill is pocketing.  It just is wrong.

Paul does not deny evolution. He thinks it's a pretty logical theory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKAaps6mFYk 3:55
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiVy2NbWcgo 3:50

In his book, 'Liberty Defined', he stresses that believing in evolution doesn't mean one has to reject God:


It seems he wants to make clear to his constituents that if he expresses a belief in evolution, he hasn't become an athiest.

Maybe his position on evolution IS a little irrational. Maybe he is a little blinded by his religious faith. But maybe he wouldn't have persisted so long in voting 'No' when every else voted 'Yes' if it wasn't for his religious faith.

Given the stakes, rejecting someone just because they have an imperfect view on something that they have no intention of legislating on, and which they would pay a heavy political price in return for no benefit if they did take the scientifically more correct stance on, isn't a good trade-off.

Has anyone even gotten to speak to Ron Paul about his stance on Bitcoin? and Whether or not he supports the idea, I see on his website as mentioned earlier in this post he says he does not accept them.

But some how, it is needed to find out his opinions and views some how on Bitcoin, and see if he is actually PRO Bitcoin or ANTI Bitcoin, it's very well for people to just assume based on what he says with other things etc that he maybe Pro Bitcoin, but realistically he may very well hate the idea, not understand it or has been mis informed.

He obviously has a number of hoops to jump through before you can contact him and get a direct answer from the man himself?

I am not an American citizen so I do not know enough about Ron Paul, I have seen many you tube videos which he impresses me, but we really need to find out:

A) Does He Understand Bitcoin
B) Does He understand the possibilities
C) If He does know the above what is his true opinion, For or Against Bitcoin

Thanks!

Good Idea ! 8)

Sorry guys. After listening to your concerns and talking to our counsel, we've decided to suspend political donations.

Our sincere apologies.

We've removed the donation option and will return all donations to those who have made them.

-Francisco

He does not accept them due to the campaign finance laws, and all the issues that it could cause from those.

He does support competition (http://www.ronpaul.com/2011-07-11/ron-paul-we-need-free-competition-in-currencies/) in currencies, which to me is better then a specific probitcoin stance.


http://www.ronpaul.com/2011-07-11/ron-paul-we-need-free-competition-in-currencies/ (http://www.ronpaul.com/2011-07-11/ron-paul-we-need-free-competition-in-currencies/)

Hi I Totally Understand what you are saying, I am not talking about the campaign support for him in Bitcoins, I am Simply talking about Does Ron Paul Understand Bitcoin 100% and If So who knows and can confirm, and if he doesn't does some one plan on being able to interview Ron Paul on the Bitcoin Topic - Maybe Bruce Wagner from Only One TV maybe able to do this. * So I am not talking about his Donations!!! * Talking purely and simply about if he is Pro Bitcoin or Not and getting confirmation from the man himself!

Thanks

Politicians never understand anything 100%, hell I would wager most know less than 50% about anything. Important example being "the internet is a series of tubes"

I don't support politics, let along Ron Paul. Going back to the gold standard when the "people" no longer have any gold is a dumb idea. It's exactly what the IMF bankers and the super elite want so that they can massively increase their worth over night when the dollar falls. Ron Paul is just another dumb puppet on the political stage called USA. Get over it people. If you are gonna do anything, go close your Paypal account and donate to Wikileaks.

Bummer.

wtf tradehill?

I believe Peter Schiff is his economic advisor and Peter doesn't like/understand bitcoins at all (check youtube). So there is my best guess A) NO

To clarify this: I added the option after a few users had requested to donate. I had not spoken with Ron Paul's campaign. They don't actually accept Bitcoins. The idea was to sell Bitcoins at market value and then send a USD check. Essentially sending them "Bitcoin money"  I had thought this was clear and it was not intended to mislead people in to thinking we had a special relationship or they accepted Bitcoin.

A few hours later we saw how much attention this was getting and reevaluated. We disabled the withdrawal method and sent the funds back to the users accounts. At this point there has been and will not be any money sent to Ron Paul from TradeHill.

I sincerely apologize, this was my mistake and would like to thank everyone for their support.

Regards,
Jered

Thanks for the effort Jered. Can you tell us how many BTC had been donated in what timeframe?

Thanks for the honesty and maybe you can set up a seperated page (preferrably on a seperate domain...) that takes BTC payments, converts them to USD using a bot or some trading tools and then after some threshhold is reached automatically sends a check or a paypal payment? This might be a VERY useful service for other uses (miners!) too...

Thank you for doing the right thing for the Bitcoin community.



It's called his website. Check it out.

As in how much people wanted to send ? I believe a total of 2 BTC that we refunded.

If you're asking how much was actually sent to his campaign that's zero.

It all took place within a few hours.







We would like to implement something like that for regular users but it won't have anything to do with political contributions.


Jered

I believe your were flirting with the "third rail" of business; "never discuss politics".

IMHO businesspeople, while in the business envoronment, should generally not discuss politics or religion. Business is business.

You did the right thing by stepping out of politics.

So where on his website do I send Bitcoins and automagically some USDs are being sent to an address/bank account specified by me? ::)

Anyways, topic's over, move along!

agreed.

everybody makes mistakes - it's what you take away from them that matters.

and really - of all the business ventures surrounding Bitcoin, it's clear that TH is always the most concerned with doing whatever is right.  my compliments.

Thanks Jaime and Smalleyster. Is there anyway we can lock this down? It's been way overblown and corrected. I made a mistake, we acted on that. $26 dollars was almost donated but we stopped it from happening.
There are far bigger issues concerning Bitcoin right now.

Jered