Campaign Watchdog in California Bans Political Donations in Bitcoin

Published at: Sept. 21, 2018

California’s campaign regulator has recently banned Bitcoin (BTC) from political donations, the Associated Press reports Friday, September 21.

In August, the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) had considered allowing donations in cryptocurrencies. The watchdog planned to discuss the use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for political contributions and discuss their adoption.

The FPPC then held a vote on donations of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin on Thursday, September 20. According to the AP, the members voted 3-1 for the ban, noting that the origin of cryptocurrencies is hard to track and raises questions about transparency.

The U.S. Federal Elections Commission generally allows Bitcoin donations to federal candidates. However, several states have banned or restricted such type of contributions — South Carolina has completely banned Bitcoin donations, while Colorado and Montana allow them with restrictions, the AP writes.

As Cointelegraph reported back in 2017, California had previously considered banning bitcoin transactions for charity raffles purchase the proposal has not been accepted since then.

Cointelegraph previously listed several U.S. politicians who succeeded in raising funds for their political campaigns via crypto. However, some of the campaigns raised questions on transparency and legality of such contributions.

For instance, in May 2018, Obama’s former aide on crypto and digital technologies, Brian Forde, was criticized for accepting Bitcoin donations during his campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. In an ad by Forde’s opponent, Forde’s donors were pictured as “Bitcoin speculators that oppose cracking down on drug deals and human trafficking.” Forde himself considered the comments “wildly inaccurate”.

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