We’ve written before about enterprising American politicians accepting Bitcoin donations for their political campaigns.
But B.J. Guillot is different.
On Thursday, Guillot’s campaign announced that they will be accepting donations in Bitcoin. Guillot is a Republican running for Congress in Washington’s 2nd congressional district against the Democratic incumbent, Representative Rick Larsen.
He also mines Bitcoin. And he’s been doing it for a while.
Guillot started mining with desktop computers before working up to specialized Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) mining equipment, according to online digital currency news outlet The Crypto Crimson.
Guillot is currently mining Bitcoin at a hashrate of five Terahash per Second, the outlet reported, and can be found on on BitMinter pool’s Live Statistics Board under the name ‘bguillot.’
At times, Guillot has ranked as high as the 15th fastest participant in the pool, The Crypto Crimson reported.
Since the Federal Election Commission (FEC) issued ambiguous guidelines on how politicians should treat Bitcoin, Guillot’s campaign will only accept donations worth $100 in Bitcoin or less.
According to Guillot, the fact that he’s a Bitcoin miner is not the only thing that sets him apart from the other politicians who are now all about cryptocurrency: he also claims to be a Bitcoin advocate.
“One of the reason’s [sic] I’m in this race is because the IRS unfairly considers Bitcoin to be property rather than currency,” he wrote in an email to tech news site GeekWire. “This distinction means all virtual currency transactions are subject to capital gains and losses which require tedious cost-basis calculations to ensure that one’s taxes are being done correctly.”
Guillot, along with Republican representative Steve Stockman of Texas, say they plan to write and sponsor a congressional bill to change the tax status of virtual currencies from property to currency.
“Along with 3-D printers and nanotubes, cryptocurrency is the future,” Stockman said in a press release.
You can donate to Guillot’s campaign in Bitcoin (or by credit card or PayPal) here.
