Bitcoin has made its way into the U.S presidential election as bitcoin enthusiasts will now be able to donate BTC via Lightning Network in support of presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
Yang announced the launch of the super Political Action Committee (PAC) dubbed the Humanity Forward Fund (Humanity FWD) on Thursday. The Humanity FWD will utilize its payment processor, OpenNode in accepting payments from lightning wallets.
Afnan Rahman, OpenNode’s co-founder explained that the payment processor will allow the super PAC to receive large donations, as reported by CoinDesk. He also added that individuals can donate small amounts to Yang’s campaign as OpenNode’s LN based Bitcoin payments allow donors to contribute the entire sum to the cause without paying miners fees. OpenNode also offers charges lower than that of card processors as its transaction fees are 1%.
As it is, Humanity FWD will accept bitcoin donations for the first 21 days only. After which fiat donations will also be welcome. Also, crypto wallets supporting LN transactions will be able to donate to the PAC from any part of the world. Seth Cohen, Humanity FWD’s founder revealed that the group is still unsure whether it will convert the Bitcoin donations to fiat or hold Bitcoin.
On the other hand, Andrew Yang is known to be Pro-blockchain. The presidential candidate had advocated for clear policies and regulations for cryptocurrency transactions in April 2019. His stance on blockchain also reflects on his official campaign website as he states that he intends to “promote legislation that provides clarity” for the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry.
Andrew Yang isn’t the first politician to have his supporters donate Bitcoin for his campaign. Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny reportedly received over 600 BTC in donations. However, in the U.S, California’s campaign regulator banned Bitcoin from political donations in 2018. A local candidate in South Carolina was prohibited from using cryptocurrency donations in his campaign.
