Andrew Yang turns to BTC Lightning Network donations

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Andrew Yang might have a few good ideas, but he’s now getting very desperate in his presidential campaign’s fundraising. A new political action committee (PAC) is turning to SegWitCoin (BTC) as a fundraising source for the entrepreneur-turned-politician.

The Humanity Forward Fund PAC (Humanity FWD) announced a BTC Lighting network fundraising drive, running until August 14. This is a new PAC, created just a day before the BTC fundraising was launched. To enable the donation system, Humanity FWD partnered with OpenNode, a Lightning Network BTC payment processor.

In an interview with CoinDesk, OpenNode CEO Afnan Rahman said:

The super PAC obviously wants to receive donations as large as possible. But at the same time, individuals who want to donate just a bit to Yang’s platform now have that opportunity. It allows the donors to have all of the amount go toward the actual donation rather than miner fees.

Yang is one of the more obviously pro-crypto candidates in the Democratic field. He’s previously noted that he sees a big future in digital currencies and in blockchain technology, although these topics take a lower priority when compared with his promise to install a universal basic income for all Americans.

If the Yang Gang wants their candidate to stay in the race, they’ll need to act fast though. While he’s not the lowest polling candidate in the field, recent fundraising reports indicate he’s probably the poorest. Recent reports indicate Yang is spending more than he’s fundraising, and has less than $1 million left with several months go to before the Iowa caucuses. That’s peanuts compared to the $10 million to $27 million that the front runners have available to them.

Seth Cohen, Humanity FWD’s founder, is hoping that a focus on BTC fundraising might keep Yang alive in the race. “There seems to be a lot of interest in Andrew’s forward-thinking policy, his views on bitcoin, specifically,” Cohen told CoinDesk. “We would like to raise enough to have a significant impact on this election.”

Before Yang starts counting his donations, there’s a lot of problems on the BTC blockchain and lightning network to resolve first. The Lightning Network continues to be a buggy mess, suffering from low adoption to this day. Even if it did work, BTC users look to be more interested in using it as an investment method, or conduit for crime and government evasion, rather than as a useful currency for things like political donations.

August 14 isn’t too far off, so we’ll know soon enough if Yang’s fans want to keep him in the race, or continue holding their BTC.