First time in history, U.S. presidential candidate is going to accept Bitcoin (BTC) via a Lightning Network (LN). The information is shared by a Political Action Committee (PAC) known as Humanity Forward Fund (Humanity FWD) on its website on July 25.
The PAC has released a Bitcoin-backed fundraising program, known as “21 Days of Bitcoin for 21st century” on July 25, and will continue accepting Bitcoin Donations till August 14, the firm said on its official website.
Humanity FWD is a PAC that was released by the supporters of the demographic presidential candidate Andrew Yang on July 25. The main purpose here is to collect funds to support Mr. Yang to run President next year. To accept Bitcoin payments from Lightning Wallets, the PAC has made a collaboration with the Bitcoin Payment Processor known as OpenNode.
Unexpectedly, the main issue began with Humanity FWD is that they will be accepting Bitcoin from lightning wallet instead of classic Bitcoin transactions. Currently, the official site is not working.
The official site states
“HumanityFWD has partnered with OpenNode on the ’21 DAYS OF BITCOIN FOR THE 21st CENTURY’ fundraising challenge – to celebrate the launch of the Humanity Forward Fund to get Andrew Yang elected President! From July 25th to August 14th we will be EXCLUSIVELY accepting Bitcoin donations via OpenNode.”
As per Humanity FWD founder, Seth Cohen, they want to accept Bitcoin transactions in order to decrease the transaction fees when compared with other methods like credit cards. He further said that credit card processes charge up to 4%, while OpenNode charges just 1%.
Cohen disclosed that PAC has not decided on whether Humanity FWD will instantly convert raised Bitcoin to fiat or hold till the “21 Days of Bitcoin” program ends, highlighting the challenge of managing Bitcoin transactions. Cohen also said that it is essential to think about the regulations of the cryptocurrency market and how to deal with Bitcoin’s volatility.
Humanity FWD is not the first crypto-backed PAC in the U.S., Coindesk refers to the Center of Public Integrity, which anticipated that the value of crypto-donations in the 2017-18 presidential election was at $570,000.
Afterward, in September 2018, California’s campaign regulator has banned Bitcoin from political donations as it has increased issues about funds transparency and traceability. Earlier. South Carolina regulators prevented a local candidate from using cryptocurrency donations for the party as the definition of a campaign does not consist of Bitcoin.
The Lightning Network is the second layer solution for Bitcoin and is aimed to support digital asset scale and process a large number of transactions.
