If your elected representative to the U.S. Congress has never heard of cryptocurrencies, how do you start telling them about it? Hoping to raise awareness, blockchain advocacy group Chamber of Digital Commerce’s Political Action Committee (PAC) wants to start by contributing $50 worth of bitcoin to the campaign of each congressperson.
Announced Monday, the advocacy group said under its new “Crypto for Congress” initiative all members of the U.S. legislative body would receive campaign contributions in bitcoin.
According to the group’s founder, Perianne Boring, this is an attempt to raise awareness and give congresspeople a chance to interact with blockchain technology and digital assets. In addition to the contribution, the Chamber’s PAC will also provide online training and a toolkit to help members of Congress engage with cryptocurrencies.
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- “One of the biggest challenges we've always had is people just really don't understand what the heck it is we're talking about,” said Boring.
- She added that letting senior government officials interact with crypto assets through such an initiative could aid the group’s advocacy efforts for an industry that faces multiple public policy challenges such as taxation and regulatory jurisdiction.
- According to the group, once informed about the contribution, the representative’s campaign can either accept it, pass it on to a charity that accepts bitcoin (BTC) or just opt out.
- “Crypto for Congress brings an opportunity for our entire Congressional community to join this generational shift in finance and technology,” said Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), in an emailed statement. Emmer is widely regarded as one of the most pro-crypto members of Congress.
- Boring added that all of the bitcoin being given away as contributions has been mined by its U.S. based tech partners, Core Scientific and Luxor. “We're getting clean bitcoin that was mined here,” she said.
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