Accepting donations via cryptocurrency is the new hotness for the politically corrupt. Across the Atlantic, President Trump has managed to abuse the office he holds enough to double his personal wealth since his most recent stint at president began, largely via dubious crypto semi-scams that have made almost all its “investors” poorer, except a handful the very rich – but more importantly it provides an untraceable-in-principle way for people who are not allowed to donate vast sums to a foreign country’s political campaign – aka bribes – to break the law, undetected.
Farage naturally likes what he sees there. So, once again jetting off to foreign lands in lieu of representing his constituents, he’s been seen at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas.
After being introduced as a “UK presidential candidate” – note: there is no such thing as a presidential candidate in the UK – he proudly announced that Reform will be the first British party to accept donations in cryptocurrency.
Of course it’s not clear why anyone would want to donate to them in cryptocurrency, as opposed to the much more convenient if boring conventional money = unless, of course, they were up to no good.
Furthermore, he revealed his plans to make tax changes that once favour the rich and powerful who dominate the murky, world of crypto, including a more-than-halving the capital gains tax that would normally be due on the profits of such an investment from 24% to 10%.
Whether this will allow him to secretly funnel the vast sums of basically illegal money Elon Musk was once reputed to be offering him to his coffers awaits to be seen (or not). But even the Telegraph worries that “Farage’s flirtation with Bitcoin will cost him his credibility” here in the UK where they average person has an attitude to crypto somewhere between “don’t care” and “don’t like”. We can but hope.