- Tom Emmer to accept campaign donations in cryptocurrencies
“Increasingly more use of crypto for politically motivated purposes will push crypto acceptance and adaption by the masses – and the political field. Great development,” a cryptocurrency investment platform Crypto Mastermind tweeted Thursday, August 20, 2020
The firm was reacting to the recent announcement by a US Congressman Tom Emmer that he would accept cryptocurrency donations for his reelection campaign.
Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota who is the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and member of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus opened his first cryptocurrency town hall on Thursday with the announcement.
Tom Emmer disclosed that a crypto payment platform BitPay will process all donations for his reelection.
According to CoinDesk, the town hall was held in conjunction with the Chamber of Digital Commerce PAC to celebrate innovators in the crypto industry and to encourage engaged voters to participate in political discourse.
CDC founder and President Perianne Boring was quoted to have said that donations could be made using any of the eight cryptocurrencies supported by BitPay, including bitcoin, bitcoin cash, Gemini’s U.S. dollar stablecoin and Circle’s USDC.
Is Tom Emmer the first politician to publicly declare his support for cryptocurrency?
Emmer isn’t the first politician to public declare his support for cryptocurrency, in 2015, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) accepted bitcoin to fund his presidential campaign. In 2019, Democrats Rep. Eric Salwell of California and Andrew Yang both accepted donations in cryptocurrencies for their presidential campaigns as well.
This time, it’s gathered that Emmer’s initiative is different because he’s also engaging community.
“He’s engaging the community. It’s more than just adding a button on his campaign website. It’s about including more people in the political process, especially young people who prefer to leverage advanced technologies,” coindesk quoted a source.
The crypto town hall was described as a “celebration” of innovators in the crypto space, and featured industry leaders BitPay CEO Stephan Pair, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, eToro Managing Director Guy Hirsch, Bloq co-founder and Chairman Matthew Roszak as well as Paxos co-founder and CEO Chad Cascarilla.
Emmer’s announcement came at time bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are experiencing new wave of surge in demand.