It’s all the rage in politics. Democrats are doing it. Federal-level politicians are doing it, and state-level politics are trying to get on it too. Hell, even some Republicans are taking a stab at it.
Now, finally, the libertarians are on board with accepting Bitcoins as campaign donations as well (and in Texas, no less). The Libertarian Party of Texas is claiming to be the first political party in Texas to accept Bitcoin.
“We fully support and endorse free markets, open systems, and creative innovation,” the party website says. “We embrace this and any other experiment in an alternative form of currency as it is fully in alignment with our philosophy of privacy, posterity, and freedom for all.”
Donors are presented with a range of contribution options on the site, starting at $10 worth of Bitcoin and going all the way up to the wildly generous suggestion of $25,000.
The libertarian endorsement of Bitcoin in politics is unsurprising, given the whole philosophy behind their party platform is based on skepticism of central authority. Numerous articles have detailed the reasons why Bitcoin attracts many libertarians – among them little to no government interference,
The CEO of Reddit, Yishan Wong, has even pointed out the connection. “Without being too inflammatory, the userbase for bitcoin is basically crazy libertarians who are increasingly poorly-informed about currency systems and macroeconomics,” he wrote on question-and-answer site Quora.
I’ll leave it to the readers to comment on that statement.
Apparently, though, 44% of Bitcoin users self-identify as libertarians, according to an online survey by Lui Smyth, a University College London researcher. The survey also found that the average Bitcoin user is a 32-year-old libertarian male.
The survey was posted in February 2013, when public awareness of Bitcoin had yet to really take off. As Bitcoin knowledge grows among other demographics, that stereotype will (or perhaps already has) changed.
On the political side, however, what’s next? Representatives from nearly every American political party have come forward to endorse (or, at least, accept) Bitcoin.
Every party, that is, except the Tea Party. But we probably won’t see the likes of Michelle Bachmann embracing the virtues of cryptocurrency anytime soon.
…Right?