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

[JohnDoeZ]

should give the option to donate to anyone running

Good Idea !

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

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

[twobits]

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!

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 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/

[bitminers]

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!

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 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/

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

[Meatpile]

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"

[Litt]

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.

[DrYe5]

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

Bummer.

[airdata]

wtf tradehill?

[BitcoinBug]

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!

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

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

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

[DrYe5]

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?

[Sukrim]

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 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...

[OgNasty]

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

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

maybe you can set up a seperated page that takes BTC payments, converts them to USD...

It's called his website. Check it out.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

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?

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.

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 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...

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


Jered

[Smalleyster]

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.

[Sukrim]

maybe you can set up a seperated page that takes BTC payments, converts them to USD...

It's called his website. Check it out.

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!

[Jaime Frontero]

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.

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.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

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.

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