By
Mayowa Adebajo
April 15th, 2024
Under the FEC advisory opinion, it would be possible to support political campaigns by donating computer power to mine crypto for preferred candidates.
While some crypto traders and investors are gripped by panic caused by the negative trend that all the major cryptocurrencies have entered, cryptocurrencies are moving forward to its mass adoption and wide application.
According to the news received from the U.S., the U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC) has issued a draft advisory opinion that could allow mining pools to donate to political campaigns.
FEC Decision
The decision has taken in the context of preparation for the 2020 U.S. presidential election following the conclusion of November 2018 midterm elections.
In its memorandum, the FEC stated that it’s permissible to contribute one’s computer processing power to mine cryptocurrency with a view to support a political campaign of a preferred candidate. Nevertheless, such an act will be viewed as a contribution not just an act of volunteering.
The FEC explained it the following way:
“The Commission concludes that the proposed cryptocurrency mining pool does not fall within the volunteer internet activities exception to the definition of a contribution. Because an individual will be providing something of value to a political committee…the individual will be making a contribution to the political committee, equivalent to the usual and normal charge for the computing services used.”
Background
This decision was taken as a reaction to a request that the commission had received from by OsiaNetwork LLC. The company seeks to become a platform that will be used by people who want to donate their computing power of their internet-enabled devices to mine cryptocurrencies to support political campaigns.
In other words, the aim of OsiaNetwork is monetization of the political fundraising procedure. It can be done by means of taking charge from campaigns for serving as a platform for crypto mining pools for them.
“OsiaNetwork will allocate the mining rewards it receives among its clients ‘proportionately to the number of hashes that each committee’s volunteers generate in order to solve the block that generates the mining reward,” is stated in the FEC memo.
How It Can Be Done
According to OsiaNetwork’s vision, it is necessary to create special pages on the federal political committees’ existing website to give volunteers a possibility to donate the computing power of their devices. By keeping this web page open, volunteers will let their devices be a part of the mining pool.
OsiaNetwork believes that individuals should have a possibility to contribute to as many political campaigns as they consider it necessary. Nevertheless, in this case, they won’t have the right to benefit from the mining rewards.
Now the draft will be available for public comment. Osia Network should prepare a response by December 19.
Let us also remind that the FEC first allowed Bitcoin donations to political candidates in 2014. In 2017-2018 a total of donations made in cryptocurrency to nine federal candidates amounted to $570,000.