On May 14, a bill was introduced in the Minnesota House of Representatives to prohibit political candidates from accepting certain digital currency like bitcoin unless backed by an official legal currency.

House File 2884 would prohibit an individual, political committee, political fund, principal campaign committee, or party unit from soliciting or accepting a contribution or donation of any digital unit of exchange.

This includes but is not limited to bitcoin, that is not backed by a government-issued legal tender.

Under the bill, a person knowingly accepting any prohibited digital unit of exchange would be guilty of a felony.

The legislation also imposes a civil penalty of up to $3,000 for any individual, political committee, political fund, principal campaign committee, or party unit knowingly soliciting or accepting any digital unit of exchange.

On December 13, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) may consider whether allowing an individual volunteering to allow the processing power of his or her internet-enabled device to mine cryptocurrencies for the benefit a political committee would be considered a political contribution.

An advisory opinion request asks the FEC if a federal political committee could allow its individual supporters to volunteer the processing power of their internet-enabled devices to pool the processing power of these devices, which results in the mining of a “block.”

Mining allows transactions between users to be authenticated and generates a new cryptocurrency unit for the miner as a reward for creating the “block” and pays the miner a transaction fee. Creating blocks requires enormous amounts of computing power and can take years to generate a valid “block” by a single miner.

The FEC may consider Draft Advisory Opinion 2018-13 (Draft A) at its open meeting December 13, or hold it over for a future date.

On September 20, the Fair Political Practices Commission prohibited the use of cryptocurrency in political contributions in California.

The FPPC stated the anonymity of these donations would make it difficult to discern who is attempting to influence elections.

This is contrary to the position the Federal Election Commission took in 2014, which said cryptocurrencies are in-kind property and federal candidates could accept them as a form of contribution under certain conditions.

Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams is considering amendments to the state’s campaign finance rules.

A new rule would allow committees to accept contributions in the form of cryptocurrency up to the limits for cash or coin contributions.

The value of such contributions would be the value of the cryptocurrency at the time the contributions are made.

Prior to issuing the proposed draft, the Secretary of State’s office is seeking public comments to identify potential revisions and additional guidance. Comments must be submitted by May 23.