US officials vote to allow Bitcoin for political donations

The US Federal Election Commission (FEC) has officially approved Bitcoin as a medium of exchange for political donations. The Thursday ruling will allow Bitcoin holders to legally donate the digital currency to politicians, either when exchanged through a processor or transferred directly to a candidate – although the payments …

[Big-nosed Pengie]

No doubt they'd allow dog turds for political donations if there was a buck in it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares if the FEC allows it

I'm raiding the neighbor's yard tonight to steal some donations to send to all my politicians. Democrat and Republican, I believe both richly deserve as much as my neighbor's dog can afford to give!

[LarsG]

If you can't beat them.... Tax them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Politicians allow people to send them money shock. *sigh*

[Steven Roper]

it should be a publicly available rate of Bitcoins traded for dollars on a high-volume public Bitcoin exchange that is open to transactions within the United States

Translation: "We want lobbyists to be able to donate anonymously to political parties to hide their involvement, but we want to be able to spy on everyone else and strip that anonymity away for the general public at the same time."

So more of the usual "one law for us, another for everyone else" then. Oh well. It was good while it lasted.

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly is saying that the exchange rate should match a local, stable reference point "one rule for us and one for them"? And how is enforcing campaign finance laws "spying", anyway? And how does this apply uniquely to bitcoin anyway?

There are a lot of things to hate about recent campaign finance regulation changes, but as far as I'm aware, none of them have to do with anything you're talking about.

[Jerry G.]

It's interesting only a number of months ago they were talking about the idea to ban Bitcoin, or find a way to regulate it. The reason is with Bitcoin they would not have control over it as like regular currency, and be able to track it for taxing the users who make profit it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitcoin is no different than cash in terms of trackability, and last time I checked cash was still legal.

The only people yammering about banning bitcoin were a few low rent local legislators who have less political power than my cat. The Reg talked it up because beating on Americans makes their customers happy, not because - as much as said readership would like it to be so - the US is not actually a jackbooted autocracy, bitcoin being a case in point: The fed and now the election people actively support it, despite the dire predictions of Reg commentards who insist that the government is about to ban bitcoin because some numbnut county clerk from Hairbrain, Arkansas wanted to get his bame in the paper.

Also, why would the government care about "controlling" bitcoin? The government wants to prevent people from evading taxes and commiting crimes, but outside of that bitcoin isn't terribly interesting. It's no different than trading gold bars or baseball cards or beanie babies, aside from being physically more convenient, and it's arguably -more- traceable than cash by quite a bit.

I know it's in vogue to scream bloody murder about how the horrible hegemony of orwellian blah blah is about to grind us under its brutal heel, but wouldn't it make more sense to be paranoid about, say, the real things that the NSA has actually done rather than the imaginary things that unknown people aren't going to do?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot one thing...

The Banksters have the politicians in their pockets. They fear bitcoin and have been desperately trying to bring it down with claims about it being used for drugs/arms etc which apply to ALL currencies anyway. They can't manipulate libor rates, do currecy hedging and all the other fraudulent activities the y normally do with bitcoin.

[Joe Cooper]

Re: You forgot one thing...

"They fear bitcoin and have been desperately trying to bring it down"

They're failing.

What was that about pockets?

Did you mean China and Russia? I hear they're not so keen on bitcoin.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now its official

Bitcoin is only used for funding disreputable and criminal activities that need to be kept from the light of day.

Legitimate activity need not apply.

[Graham O'Brien]

Re: Now its official

Yup - the politicians said Bitcoins could only be used for evil and, for the first time ever, they've kept their word!

[John Tserkezis]

Great! Another way to make political bribes donations!

[Rick Brasche]

so the question is..

for the purposes of campaign finance rules:

is the value of the donation counted as the value of BC at the time of the donation or the time it is translated to cash?

Because with the suspiciously controlled volatility of BC, I can see a "donate low, pump high" plan among those politicians with "friends" in high social media circles.

Even this shows the problem with BC. No politician is buying her posters, her airtime, her expensive hotels with BC, her campaign is gonna liquidate it at the best possible price and convert it to USD to stash in the war chest.