NFTs are the latest rage in campaign fundraising in the United States.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been discovered by US congressional candidates as a way to fund their campaigns in the upcoming midterm elections.
What began as a new way to promote art in early 2021, utilising the blockchain technology that supports cryptocurrencies, has now extended to include politics.
If candidates enable contributors to pay for NFTs using cryptocurrencies, according to Josh White, an assistant professor of finance at Vanderbilt University and a former SEC economist, this might open up new avenues for anonymous payments.
If a candidate promises that donors can profit from their NFTs by selling or trading them in a secondary market, according to Zachary Fallon, a former SEC officer and partner at the New York law firm Ketsal, the “SEC would begin to take an interest in such cases.”
“I believe that is something that policymakers will have to grapple with,” he stated.
Shrina Kurani, a Democrat running for a House seat in California, chose to offer NFTs as contributor incentives, with mixed results.
She referred to NFTs as “campaign goods,” noting that she was the first to give them to campaign donors via SolSea, a digital marketplace.
Kurani even compared the manner she raised money through the NFT offering to how former President Donald Trump raised millions of dollars from his fans by wearing MAGA hats.
When the offer expired at the end of December, she only raised $6,610 and distributed less than a dozen tokens.
On the other side, Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters said he raised over $575,000 in late December by promising to provide donors tokens with cover art for a book about start-up enterprises that he co-wrote with Silicon Valley billionaire and prominent Trump booster Peter Thiel.
Melania Trump, too, recently founded NFTs to aid contributors in collecting “unique and limited-edition artworks while supporting children in foster care.”
