Blockchain Legal Resource

The acting general counsel of the Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) recently published for public comment a draft advisory opinion under the Federal Election Campaign Act and related FEC regulations regarding mining cryptocurrencies for the benefit of political committees.  According to draft Advisory Opinion 2018-13, a service provider has proposed to provide services to political committees to enable individuals to use the processing power of internet-enabled devices to mine cryptocurrencies, with the political committees receiving the mined cryptocurrency. A “political committee” is broadly defined under FEC regulations to include a wide variety of groups that have paid money or provided anything else of value to influence a federal election.