60% of US Voters Want Cryptocurrency Political Donations to Be Legal

[randall_boss]

Clovr recently surveyed 1,023 registered U.S. voters to learn how the American public views the possibility of political candidates accepting cryptocurrency donations for campaign financing. A majority of 60 percent said cryptocurrency donations should be treated the same as fiat, with only 21 percent disagreeing.

Regarding the topic of security, 54 percent of respondents in the Clovr survey answered that cryptocurrencies were safe enough for political donations. Breaking it down by party affiliation, 63 percent of Republicans agreed cryptocurrency was secure enough to be used for political purposes, with 52 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of independents saying the same. Additionally, 73 percent of those polled who claimed to be knowledgeable about cryptocurrencies believed security was not an issue.

What do people think about this? Do you think this is a good representation of the majority of U.S. voters? Or is 1,000 or so people just not enough?

Full article : https://news.bitcoin.com/survey-60-of-us-voters-want-cryptocurrency-political-donations-to-be-legal/

[squatter]

Clovr recently surveyed 1,023 registered U.S. voters to learn how the American public views the possibility of political candidates accepting cryptocurrency donations for campaign financing. A majority of 60 percent said cryptocurrency donations should be treated the same as fiat, with only 21 percent disagreeing.

What do people think about this? Do you think this is a good representation of the majority of U.S. voters? Or is 1,000 or so people just not enough?

That's more than I expected. It's not a huge sample, but it gives a confidence interval of +/-3% at a probability of 95%. Chances are pretty high that the results are in the realm of accurate.

It seems tricky to me from a regulatory perspective because of the prohibitions against large anonymous or cash contributions. It's not totally clear what cryptocurrency is in terms of FEC, FPPC, etc. regulations.

[countryfree]

Pretty bad idea. There's already a lot of dirty money in politics, and allowing cryptos would only make things worse. If the people want clean politicians, there shouldn't be a single anonymous donation to any political organization.

[Kingofbitcoin12345]

The idea of using bitcoin in the political arena is as bad as centralisation.. It harms more the community than benefiting from it.. No to politics!! and no politicians has the right to used cryptocurrency for they’re illegal and money laundering activity..

A representative in congress who support crypto is rather good than donating bitcoin to random politicians who are corrupt..

[Lucius]

Pretty bad idea. There's already a lot of dirty money in politics, and allowing cryptos would only make things worse. If the people want clean politicians, there shouldn't be a single anonymous donation to any political organization.

I agree that financing of politicians and their parties should be completely transparent, but we all know that in most countries this is not the case. Maybe financing with BTC would not be as bad as it seems, because it is not entirely anonymous transactions. Solution would be that everyone can donate in cryptocurrency, but that transaction need to be publicly displayed with the name of the donor.

Some anonymous coins certainly should be excluded from donations, but if we want BTC to become serious currency at world level, then we should find a way for politicians to use it in the form of donations.

[Kemarit]

Pretty bad idea. There's already a lot of dirty money in politics, and allowing cryptos would only make things worse. If the people want clean politicians, there shouldn't be a single anonymous donation to any political organization.

Right, political donations should be transparent and I don't think that bitcoin or any other coins is a good candidate to be accepted for political fundings. Yes, its a bit tricky, but I really don't see any positive output. And this could give political, who's anti-bitcoin, another avenue to attack not only bitcoin but their political opponents who supported cryptos.

[TKarollah]

Pretty bad idea. There's already a lot of dirty money in politics, and allowing cryptos would only make things worse. If the people want clean politicians, there shouldn't be a single anonymous donation to any political organization.

Right, political donations should be transparent and I don't think that bitcoin or any other coins is a good candidate to be accepted for political fundings. Yes, its a bit tricky, but I really don't see any positive output. And this could give political, who's anti-bitcoin, another avenue to attack not only bitcoin but their political opponents who supported cryptos.

there has never been transparency for such a thing because it has become a policy of every political agenda regarding the budget. as long as it does not carry funds for public business it is still only a contribution, if it is not ratified then the practice will continue to run quietly, at least there must be laws so that it can be monitored in the hope of developing a more transparent draft in the future.

[figmentofmyass]

Pretty bad idea. There's already a lot of dirty money in politics, and allowing cryptos would only make things worse. If the people want clean politicians, there shouldn't be a single anonymous donation to any political organization.

Right, political donations should be transparent and I don't think that bitcoin or any other coins is a good candidate to be accepted for political fundings. Yes, its a bit tricky, but I really don't see any positive output. And this could give political, who's anti-bitcoin, another avenue to attack not only bitcoin but their political opponents who supported cryptos.

i'm not sure how to make political donations transparent in practice. for example, in federal elections in the USA, corporate contributions are prohibited. but with credit cards, it's impossible to know whether the account is personal or corporate. and for checks, all they do is report the names on the check---you can put anything you want on the check if you're the account holder.

reimbursements of political contributions are generally prohibited because they hide the source of the money. but we constantly see executives at major corporations giving the maximum possible contributions to the same candidates. this is a quid quo pro with their corporate employers. even cash contributions are still allowed. and they can be structured in ways to hide the source of the money.

if there is no intention to close all the loopholes that hide the source of political donations, i see no reason why bitcoin shouldn't be allowed.

[jseverson]

As much as I think that this is a non-issue, the article did raise a very legitimate concern: it's going to make foreign interference easier. But then again, that's already illegal as far as I know, so they could easily use Bitcoin whether it's deemed legal or not, so it's probably completely irrelevant.

But yeah I don't think crypto being involved in politics is necessarily a bad thing. It's just money at the end of the day, and it could be more transparent and actually completely public, compared to traditional cash flow.

[buwaytress]

I agree that financing of politicians and their parties should be completely transparent, but we all know that in most countries this is not the case. Maybe financing with BTC would not be as bad as it seems, because it is not entirely anonymous transactions. Solution would be that everyone can donate in cryptocurrency, but that transaction need to be publicly displayed with the name of the donor.

Some anonymous coins certainly should be excluded from donations, but if we want BTC to become serious currency at world level, then we should find a way for politicians to use it in the form of donations.

Absolutely. It's already pretty complex in the US, never mind much of the developing world, on how political campaigns fundraise. In the public interest - since we're generally talking about public offices - there has to be greater transparency in how the money flows.

That should be the issue fixed, not the choice of currency used to fund political aspirations. US dollar, Bitcoin, it all doesn't make a difference - both, if accounted for properly, should be part of a transparent system of recording - again, for public interest.

I don't see why it can't be as simple as nominating an intermediary to receive all Bitcoin donations, which are then converted immediately to dollars and contributed.

[LeGaulois]

It's a fake problem and will come later with a solution to sell you.
If someone wants to make a donation in crypto to a political candidate, he already knows it isn't possible, but does he care? No he can just sell the crypto to dollars and make the donation. The money is in dollars but it's still the money of crypto

[jademaxsuy]

If this is the case then so be it. I do not see any problem with this because donations will be gone to good. The question that may arises with this is how they will donate their cryptocurrency to the respectives. Some may be just using it as the chance to be greedy by creating fake organizations which cryptocurrecy will fall into. Corruption will likely to happen with the politicians behind cryptocurrency donations.