Republican Congressional Committee to Accept Cryptocurrency Donations
Republican House is the First National Party Committee to Accept Cryptocurrency Donations
The Republican House campaign arm will start accepting donations in cryptocurrency, making the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) the first national party committee to accept contributions via cryptocurrencies.
Donations will be accepted using the crypto payment provider service, BitPay. Notably, the NRCC will never actually take possession of the cryptocurrency as payment processor BitPay will transfer the donated crypto in U.S. dollars to the committee's account.
In the announcement release, the head of the NRCC, Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), also a co-chair of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus and member of the House Financial Services Committee, said:
"We are focused on pursuing every avenue possible to further our mission of stopping Nancy Pelosi’s socialist agenda and retaking the House majority, and this innovative technology will help provide Republicans the resources we need to succeed.”
Furthermore, the NRCC said it would collect identifying information of all the individuals who will donate to the committee using cryptocurrencies.
U.S. Lawmakers Have Mixed Reactions Towards Cryptocurrencies
Even though cryptocurrency has received some support from Republican lawmakers, such as Cynthia Lummis and Kevin McCarthy, the party has been mostly hostile toward the nascent asset class.
In fact, the previous Republican-led administration endorsed a stringent crypto regulation on self-custodied wallets during the end of 2020.
Similarly, U.S. Democrats also have a negative outlook on cryptocurrency, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren calling Bitcoin a “bogus digital private money.”
Nevertheless, Democrats recently announced that they were forming a new task force dedicated to cryptocurrency with Rep. Maxine Waters, a chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the group will “engage with regulators and experts to do a deep dive on this poorly understood and minimally regulated industry.”