Mainstreaming the Crypto: Donations for US Senate

The penetration of Bitcoin into the political landscape is heralding the genesis of a new era. The libertarian wing of the Republican Party is leading the way. This week the story emerged that the Republican senatorial candidate Austen Petersen has accepted the largest campaign contribution in the digital currency.

The interesting aspect of this news was that Petersen received almost 24 crypto donations this year. The largest donation amounted to 0.284 BTC which corresponds to $4500 USD. The seat that he is eyeing for is Missouri Senate seat which opens up for re-election this fall in the mid-term election. He is trying to boost his campaign by accepting Bitcoins and other crypto coins.

Petersen is very popular among the young demographic of the voters and is very humorous with his campaign which literally says “Make Taxation Theft Again” on the lines of Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again”.

He said this December that he is a big fan of the digital community because of what it represents. According to Petersen, it represents decentralization, which is the key platform on which he is centering his campaign on.

This week Federal election commission records were made public which showed the highest amount of cryptocurrency donations were made in his name in the entire US history. The campaign used Atlanta based processor called Bitpay to provide a gateway for donations.

Petersen’s economic message is very hard on the deregulation of the monetary policy. He claims that he would like to see the abolition of the private banking systems which are ubiquitous in the USA altogether along with US Federal Reserves.

He also wants to introduce a legislation in order to deregulate the monetary unit i.e. dollar itself and that would, in turn, elevate competition between gold, silver, and cryptocurrencies.

There are others along the party lines who are using the Bitcoin in order to boost their campaign. Coloradan Democrat Jared Polis is one of them. Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has received Bitcoin in order to boost his Presidential campaign in 2016 already.