Political Campaigns in Minnesota May be Fined for Accepting Cryptocurrency Donations, New Bill Proposes

A group of lawmaking executives in the state of Minnesota is looking to ban political campaign donations done via cryptocurrencies instead of local fiat.

According to The Block, the bill was introduced in May, 2019. A summary of the bill reads:

“Campaign finance; solicitation or acceptance of a digital unit of exchange for political campaign purposes prohibited, and civil and criminal penalties provided.”

While it didn’t appear to gain much ground since then, the group has renewed this push as of February 27.

Cryptocurrency is used for a variety of things. Most notably, of course, is their financial use case. For example, Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency on the market, is meant to “bank the unbanked,” among other things.

The asset has also been used in former candidate Andrew Yang’s running for President in the 2020 American race. Yang announced in 2018 that he would accept Bitcoin, Ethereum, and all ERC20 tokens up to $2,500 in donations.

This renewed version of the bill notes that any campaign which accepts cryptocurrencies “including but not limited to bitcoin” would be fined up to $3,000 by the board.

That, and “A person who knowingly accepts any digital unit of exchange in violation of this section is guilty of a felony.”