While Ukraine is begging the world for crypto donations, Ireland is trying to pull the plug—at least when it comes to politics.
Local government minister Darragh O’Brien, whose responsibilities include electoral reform, said Sunday that he wants to amend a 2022 Electoral Reform Bill to ban crypto donations to political parties and add stricter rules on other non-crypto foreign donations to prevent election meddling, according to the Irish Independent, a local paper.
“The appalling invasion of the Ukraine and insidious disinformation war highlight the ongoing fundamental threats faced by all democracies,” he wrote in his note to party members.
O’Brien has been looking at how to protect Irish elections from interference since early January, when he established a task force of experts to investigate new election laws.
O’Brien’s office did not respond to Coins2Day’s request for comment.
Several U.S. States have also banned crypto donations to political campaigns, including California in 2018 due to transparency issues. States such as Oregon, Michigan, and North Carolina also prohibit political donations made in crypto, according to MultiState, a state and local government relations company.
Since cryptocurrency donations can be made anonymously and are oftentimes outside of the purview of banks and other financial entities, some, like O’Brien, worry that they could be used to anonymously influence elections.
Russia used disinformation campaigns to influence the U.S. Presidential election in 2016 and the Brexit referendum in the U.K. That same year. Since it invaded Ukraine earlier this year, Russia has stepped up propaganda campaigns both domestically and abroad.
The proposed election rules in Ireland come as Ukraine opens its arms to crypto donations, as Russia’s invasion drags into its second month. The country passed a “virtual assets” law legalizing cryptocurrency on March 16, and has already received about $100 million in crypto donations, according to Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine’s deputy minister at the Ministry of Digital Transformation. The government’s official crypto donation page allows people to donate in at least 16 cryptocurrencies. You can also buy or donate an NFT, with all the proceeds going directly to the Ukrainian military.
The donations have been used to buy nonlethal supplies for the Ukrainian military, including bulletproof vests and food, according to the Financial Times.
Despite the aid provided by crypto donations to Ukraine, cryptocurrency exchanges have been criticized by Western governments over the possibility that crypto could be used as a way for Russia to avoid sanctions.
Some of the biggest crypto exchanges, like Coinbase and Binance, have rejected calls to unilaterally ban Russian users as other payment companies have done.
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