Pro-Crypto Democrat Jonathan Herzog Running for US Congress

Published at: June 4, 2020

Cryptocurrency advocate Jonathan Herzog is running for election to the U.S. House of Representatives in the primary against fellow Democrat Jerry Nadler, who has represented New York's 10th Congressional District since 2013.

A former staffer of ex-presidential candidate Andrew Yang, Herzog first announced his intention to run for office in 2019, but has recently become much more vocal about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). 

“Time for a representative who knows what Bitcoin is,” Herzog tweeted to his 5,900 followers on May 23, followed by a message today which said the future would be “decentralized and open source.”

Following in Yang’s footsteps

Like the pro-crypto presidential candidate Yang, Herzog supports universal basic income (UBI) and is pushing for digital assets as a campaign issue. He has taken Nadler to task, calling the Congressman “asleep at the switch on cryptocurrencies.”

Hopeful but realistic expectations 

The 26-year-old candidate has had a positive reception to his campaign from the crypto community, although many dismiss his efforts as useful only in terms of promoting UBI and digital currency. 

Reddit user CatnipHappy said Herzog “has no chance of winning in his district” but hoped he would “help other UBI candidates who do have a chance in winning.”

The media has been just as blunt. City & State NY magazine said Nadler was “all but guaranteed victory” due to his popularity, visibility, and funding.  

Others are yet to give up hope about Herzog’s chances. Twitter user Jadentheman cited other underdog candidates:

“They said the same about AOC. There is a small chance something could happen.”

Herzog is on the ballot in the Democratic primary against Nadler and progressive Lindsey Boylan for June 23, 2020.

Tags
Related Posts
Crypto in the crosshairs: US regulators eye the cryptocurrency sector
In her monthly Expert Take column, Selva Ozelli, an international tax attorney and CPA, covers the intersection between emerging technologies and sustainability, and provides the latest developments around taxes, AML/CFT regulations and legal issues affecting crypto and blockchain. Lately, news headlines are focused on regulators’ concerns over the lack of investor protections in the cryptocurrency market, which has ballooned to more than $2 trillion, and the possible risks to financial stability. National security agencies across the administration of United States President Joe Biden are grappling with high-profile cases of cryptocurrencies playing a role in ransomware attacks, intellectual property espionage, sanctions …
Regulation / Oct. 24, 2021
What the SEC can learn from the German regulator
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s chairperson Gary Gensler announced this month that the crypto industry should not escape the purview of the regulator. He highlighted that decentralized finance (DeFi) trading and lending protocols need particular attention when it comes to investor protections. Regulation can extend into a menu of options that covers custody, reporting, counterparty verification and asset classification and issuance. Reports are surfacing that people are waiting with bated breath on how the SEC will regulate the DeFi industry, but Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, also known as BaFin, has found a way to apply existing securities …
Technology / Aug. 12, 2021
XRP purchasers back Ripple, arguing that it is not a security
On Dec. 22, 2020, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against Ripple Labs. The complaint essentially alleged that Ripple had engaged in a multi-year, sustained practice of illegally selling unregistered, non-exempt securities in the form of its XRP tokens. This complaint, having been filed on the last day of former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton’s tenure at the commission, led to a considerable volume of public commentary, as is not unusual for SEC litigation against major players in the crypto space. What is unusual about SEC versus Ripple is the reaction from a sizable segment of XRP …
Technology / March 21, 2021
Ripple's Garlinghouse forecasts further loss of U.S. dollar value
After what has been a crazy year in almost every sense of the word, businesses are left wondering how to proceed, Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse said. "The pandemic is throwing so many playbooks out the window," he posited in an Aug. 28 tweet. "Yesterday's action flies in the face of decades of precedent," he said, pointing toward an Aug. 27 article from the Wall Street Journal on the U.S. Federal Reserve choosing to keep interest rates low at the possible expense of higher inflation. "Signs point to further dollar debasement in the near term (leading to further diversification of …
Regulation / Aug. 29, 2020
Canada crypto regulation: Bitcoin ETFs, strict licensing and a digital dollar
In October, Toronto-based Coinsquare became the first crypto trading business to get dealer registration from the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC). That means a lot as now Coinsquare investors’ funds enjoy the security of the Canadian Investment Protection Fund in the event of insolvency, while the exchange is required to report its financial standing regularly. This news reminds us about the peculiarities of Canadian regulation of crypto. While the country still holds a rather tight process of licensing the virtual asset providers, it outpaces the neighboring United States in its experiments with crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs), pension funds’ …
Etf / Nov. 26, 2022