Bitcoin Accepted by New Hampshire Candidates
Bitcoin, the increasingly popular peer-to-peer, stateless cryptocurrency, has been embraced by New Hampshire political candidates. In May, the Federal Election Commission made Bitcoin a legal form of currency for campaign contributions. Since then, New Hampshire liberty candidates have wasted no time adopting its use in their fundraising.
According to a recent
article on SYS-CON, about a dozen New Hampshire state senate candidates have begun to use
PayStand to accept online campaign contributions. PayStand is a next generation online payment solution which accepts Bitcoin as well as traditional forms of payment. Among the New Hampshire senate candidates accepting Bitcoin are
Eileen Landies, Chair of the
New Hampshire Liberty Alliance, who is currently running for NH Senate District 20.
“It’s important for government leaders to listen to their constituency,” states Andrew Hemingway, a New Hampshire Republican gubernatorial candidate. “New Hampshire is known as the Live Free or Die State and we have always been very strong in our independent ideals. The state has spoken — they want the opportunity to use innovative and convenient payment alternatives. I am happy to accept Bitcoin as political donations and want to make it as simple a process as possible for my supporters to do that. Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is the wave of the future and I want to do everything I can to allow people to use it — including for political donations of all sorts.” –
SYS-CON Media
Jeremy Almond, CEO of PayStand, was quoted as saying “From day one PayStand has included Bitcoin among all other forms of payment and we are thrilled to be on the leading edge in the political donation process in New Hampshire and throughout the country.”
“The candidates we’ve endorsed understand that Bitcoin represents the kind of market-driven innovation this state needs to succeed in today’s global economy,” said Aaron Day, chair of the
Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire and CEO of the
Atlas Society. “PayStand offers a comprehensive, turnkey solution for candidates — and political organizations like ours — dependent on donations for victory.”
According to SYS-CON, New Hampshire is leading the currency revolution. It was ranked as having the most Bitcoin transactions per capita of any state in the US. NH State Representative Mark Warden, a Manchester Republican,
Free State Project early mover, and former Chair of the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance, is reportedly the first sitting elected official in the country to take donations by Bitcoin.
New Hampshire Rep. Mark Warden
“In our State Rep campaign (NH), I was approached by a campaign staffer to pay him in Bitcoin”, said Warden. “I agreed, though I had a very rudimentary understanding of the currency. He then suggested I accept Bitcoin contributions to the campaign. This turned out to be a fabulous idea, though its subsequent implementation had a number of challenges.”
Warden continued, “I chose to accept Bitcoin donations, not so much for the campaign per se, but to help give the new currency a sense of mainstream acceptability and applicability. As a strong believer in free markets, my confidence in the power of markets and competition extends not only to automobiles, housing, clothes, energy, haircuts, news sources and vegetables, but also to currencies. Why not? Any competition to the monopoly USD is going to bring innovation and improvement to new players…”
“I knew very little of the technology, of course, and relied heavily on advice from players in the New Hampshire Bitcoin community such as Josh Harvey, Matt Whitlock, Erik Voorhees and others. These guys were invaluable in working out the kinks of a new online contribution system as well as spreading the word worldwide, leading to contributions from strangers throughout the US.”
Harvey and Whitlock, both New Hampshire residents, are two of the founders of
Lamassu, a company which manufactures some of the world’s first Bitcoin ATM machines. Voorhees is co-founder of
Coinapult and was the founder of the Bitcoin gambling website
SatoshiDice.
Bitcoin Accepted By Numerous New Hampshire Candidates
Numerous New Hampshire pro-liberty state representative candidates now accept campaign contributions via Bitcoin. They include, but are not limited to:
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