On Dec. 6, the price of bitcoin surpassed $13,000, gaining more than $1,000 in value from a record high only the previous day. In April 2013, back when the price of bitcoin fluctuated between $76 and $266, Slate writer Eric Posner called the digital currency “a libertarian fantasy.” The Libertarian Party was already accepting bitcoin contributions then — the first political party to do so — through a system that immediately converted them to dollars, as required by policy. The LP welcomes bitcoin donations to this day. This is no surprise that political parties are beginning to accept the cryptocurrency; many other places such as Amazon are beginning to do so as well. See Coinsspent.com for more places you can spend your Bitcoins. If you’re not sure what are bitcoins then you may want to have a read of Bitcoin Revolution. Cryptocurrencies are shaping the future at the moment.
“Individuals engaged in voluntary exchange should be free to use as money any mutually agreeable commodity or item,” said Libertarian National Committee Executive Director Wes Benedict. “We don’t favor one currency or form of payment over another. Many constituents asked us to offer the bitcoin option, so we made it available. We don’t give investment advice, don’t predict future valuations of currencies, and don’t advocate for or against a particular currency, such as bitcoin. We favor a free market in currencies.”
In May 2014, five years after the inception of bitcoin, the Federal Election Commission finally got around to passing its first tentative bitcoin political contributions. The FEC unanimously ruled that bitcoin contributions up to the cash contribution limit of $100 were acceptable, but left unanswered the question of whether larger contributions were allowed.
Although the Libertarian Party’s bitcoin donations must be attached to an identifiable person, one of bitcoin’s attractive features for many people is anonymity.
“Bitcoin seems to allow people to hide transactions from government, not only from the U.S. government but from foreign governments as well,” Benedict said. “If that’s so and if it’s legal, that’s great. If it’s illegal, I have no comment.”
Since first integrating bitcoin donations into LP.org in April 2013, the Libertarian Party has accepted Bitcoin contributions as in-kind donations up to the legal limits for donations to the party, which currently stand at $10,000 per day and $33,900 per year.
“Aristotle said that a currency needs four attributes, durability, portability, divisibility and intrinsic value,” Benedict said. “Gold has all those attributes. Fiat currencies such as the dollar, the euro, and the yen do not. They lack intrinsic value because central banks can increase their supply (while decreasing their value) at will. The supply of bitcoin expands at a predictable and decreasing rate, and will ultimately be capped, so the market is giving it a value higher than the dollar.”
The value of bitcoin in relation to the dollar has increased by a factor of more than 104 since the day of Posner’s “libertarian fantasy” dismissal. It has increased by a factor of more than 29 since the day FEC decided bitcoin was allowed for political contributions.
“Maybe we’re seeing Posner’s libertarian fantasy come true,” Benedict said. “We welcome bitcoin contributions (and dollars, too) to continue to turn those fantasies into realities by fielding more than 2,000 common-sense candidates in 2018 to win elections against increasingly partisan Republicans and Democrats.”
If you work for a business that deals with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, it’s likely that you’re aware that in order to trade for assets, you require the services of a cryptocurrency exchange. If you’d be interested in launching your very own exchange, this white label cryptocurrency exchange by OpenLedger DEX could prove to be useful.
“Anastasia Beaverhausen
December 20, 2017 at 09:25
‘I am glad to see that my idea, posted right here on IPR, for the LNC to accept donations in Bitcoin, has been a success, even though I was never given any credit or thanks for being the source of this ‘
It’s always about you. Does it hurt patting yourself on the back so much?”
If it was “always about me” I would not have sacrificed so much and gotten so little in return for so many years. It was my idea for the LP to accept donations in Bitcoins. Some people resisted it, but it got passed. I never got any thanks or credit, just like I have received little to no thanks or credit for other things I’ve done over the years (like getting the LP on local TV news shows, getting the LP in USA Today, getting the LP on talk radio shows, etc…). I notice that there are certain “glory hounds” in the party who get lots of credit, some even going so far as taking credit for things about which they had little or nothing to do, while somebody like myself, who is an actual doer, receives little to no credit.
“I am glad to see that my idea, posted right here on IPR, for the LNC to accept donations in Bitcoin, has been a success, even though I was never given any credit or thanks for being the source of this ”
It’s always about you. Does it hurt patting yourself on the back so much?
Wolfefan, it sounds like you don’t know much about cryptocurrency.
1) Bitcoins are divisible, as in they can be divided into small pieces.
2) There are now over 1,300 cryptocurrencies (see http://www.coinmarketcap.com for a complete list of cryptocurrencies) So if Bitcoin is not practical for mos5 transactions, people can trade in Dash or Ethereum or Litecoin or Monero or NEM or Cardano or some other crypto.
T Rex, Peter Schiff has been wrong about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general for years. I put more stock in the opinions of say Jeff Berwick and Roger Ver on this issue than I would I. Peter Schiff. Long time libertarian investment guru Doug Casey has also finally jumped on board the cryptocurrency train.
if one Bitcoin is anything approaching $20k then it’s useless as a medium of exchange for most people. There may be a niche market for it, and that’s fine, but to think that cryptocurrencies are going to replace dollars or euros or any other state sanctioned medium of exchange for the vast majority of people is wishful thinking.
I’ll take Peter Schiff’s opinion (and my own, frankly, since I work in the industry 😉 over Julie Borowski’s.
I am a staunch libertarian however and favor letting people use whatever alternative currencies they want. Spending $76 to buy a $10 pizza in New York City–as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal recently made a video about–does not bode well for bitcoin as a currency. But to each his own.
LOL! Here’s what Julie Borowski has to say about all of the Bitcoin/cryptocurrency naysayers out there.
Each time Bitcoin has crashed, it comes back strong than before it crashed. There are now over 1,300 cryptocurrencies, and the crypto market in general is booming. Cryptocurrency is a global phenomenon. The genie is out of the bottle.
Julie Borowski: “Bitcoin Is Gonna Crash!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlJ_9QH5ArY
“T Rex
December 18, 2017 at 23:27
Bitcoin is a speculative house of cards. You can have a get-rich-quick-scheme or a decent currency, but you can’t have both. The transaction costs alone are astronomical, nullifying an use it may have as a ‘currency.'”
T Rex, there are people who have been saying this about Bitcoin ever since it started, yet it keeps chugging along, and one Bitcoin is worth close to $20,000. The cryptocurrency revolution is here to stay.
Bitcoin is a speculative house of cards. You can have a get-rich-quick-scheme or a decent currency, but you can’t have both. The transaction costs alone are astronomical, nullifying an use it may have as a “currency.”
It’s a piss-poor investment choice as well. If you want to speculate on currency, there are plenty of options other than bitcoin. If your goal is aggressive investing, there are plenty of smaller-cap stocks (and funds comprised of those stocks) out there. If your goal is short-term, high-risk speculation, a leveraged ETF (or similar product) is a far superior alternative.
The LP should not be promoting bitcoin just because it’s non-government. They’re going to get a lot of egg in their face. Just my two cents.
I am glad to see that my idea, posted right here on IPR, for the LNC to accept donations in Bitcoin, has been a success, even though I was never given any credit or thanks for being the source of this (I am also the one who told then LNC Chairman Geoffrey Neale, about a company that would automatically convert the Bitcoin donations into Federal Reserve Notes, and the head of that company actually became a dues paying member of the party). Also, thanks to Starchild, for reading my post here on IPR about how the LNC should accept donations in Bitcoins, and taking it to the LNC for a vote.
The LNC ought to also accept donations in other cryptocurrencies, like Ethereum, Dash, Litecoin, Monero, etc…