This week, the Chamber of Digital Commerce PAC sent all 535 members of the United States Congress about 0.0047 BTC ($50 worth at the time), in an effort to educate the country’s legislators around cryptocurrency and blockchain technology that it calls Crypto For Congress[1].
Leveraging Federal Election Commission rules that allow for cryptocurrency-based campaign contributions and its own Political Action Committee to make the BTC donations, the Chamber of Digital Commerce ultimately hopes to motivate these lawmakers to embrace the advantages presented by blockchain technology.
“Our industry faces a number of regulatory challenges and it’s important for our government officials to have a working knowledge of how this technology works,” Perianne Boring, founder and president of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, told Bitcoin Magazine. “If you look at tax laws, securities laws, if you look at compliance obligations, there are a lot of examples of regulators and policymakers who have tried to take this new asset class and shoehorn it into existing regulatory requirements… The more that people are informed and have a working knowledge of how this technology works, I think we’ll have a marketplace and regulatory environment that will promote innovation of blockchain technology in the U.S.”
Boring would not elaborate on how, technically, a Congressperson can accept their BTC donation, though she did say that the chamber is providing a comprehensive toolkit and instructions to walk them through it. She said that they can choose to accept the bitcoin as a one-time donation or enable their campaigns to accept ongoing cryptocurrency donations, they can choose to divert the donation to charity or they can outright refuse the donation.
American Made Bitcoin
There is a certain “American Made” angle to these donations as well. The BTC sent as part of the initiative came
