DataVault Holdings may use non-fungible tokens for fundraising activities, according to an advisory statement from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) of the United States.
The FEC stated in a December 15 notification that DataVault Holdings was permitted to distribute non-fungible tokens (NFT), to political campaign contributors without breaking the restrictions on corporate contributions. The electoral agency states that DataVault will track all tokens issued for its own purposes and get “reasonable compensation” for each NFT distributed to contributors.
Allen Dickerson, the chair of the FEC, stated that the Commission came to the conclusion that political groups will be offered NFTs by DataVault on the same terms that it regularly offers its non-political clients.
“Under the Act and Commission regulations, an incorporated commercial vendor may extend credit to political committees under terms substantially similar to those the vendor offers non-political debtors. DataVault is a ‘commercial vendor’ because its usual and normal business involves the provision of the same services that it proposes to provide to political committees.”
DataVault CEO Nathaniel Bradley expressed his company’s gratitude to the FEC for unanimously approving the use of their patented DataVault technology by US political campaigns. Nathaniel claimed that the FEC thinks blockchain technology is the way elections will be conducted in the future if they want to be transparent and dependable.
A similar advisory opinion on blockchain tokens was released by the FEC in 2019 and stated that some of them were “materially indistinguishable from traditional forms of campaign souvenirs.” In that instance, tokens given out by congressional candidate Omar Reyes had “no monetary value” and were intended to encourage volunteers to help with the campaign.
Global political campaigns have frequently been linked to NFTs. In South Korea, the campaign for Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-Myung announced in January that it would provide donors NFTs featuring the politician and his vows.