A pro-crypto PAC launched this week ahead of former President and Republican nominee Donald Trump’s expected speech at the 2024 Bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, on Saturday, propelling the once-fringe world of digital currency more so into mainstream political campaigns during a pivotal election year.
Jeff Turner, a former executive who worked in tech for four decades, founded Crypto For Us PAC, a new political action committee dedicated to electing tech-positive federal and statewide candidates and establishing pro-crypto-freedom policies throughout the judicial and administrative system.
About 21% of people who hold cryptocurrency right now are Americans, Turner told Fox News Digital, and though that may be a minority group, "that's a small but growing-rapidly constituency for our representatives."
"As that base grows," Turner explained that Crypto For Us PAC intends to ensure "they can be very well represented in terms of what's going to happen both in their financial privacy as well as holding their digital assets or having property rights to their digital assets."
"This is not to be partisan in any way. And what we want to do is to find basically pro-freedom candidates that want to support new forms of capitalism as well as and ensuring individual sovereignty," Turner told Fox News Digital. "In many ways, in my mind, this maps and mirrors the U.S. Constitution. We want to preserve everything from First Amendment rights so that when you write code, you don't have to be concerned that you're going to be doxed by some federal agency."
Turner cited the recent example of how Meta mask developers were asked by the Securities Exchange Commission to identify all individual developers who were writing those codes.
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He also referenced scandals involving PayPal in 2022, when customers were reportedly fined or had their accounts suspended for spreading "misinformation" about COVID-19.
During the pandemic, there was real concern over vaccine passports being controlled under one central authority, Turner said. As the government moves forward with the REAL ID Program, which involves retinal scans and other biometric data, his PAC supports a more decentralized, secure way to store digital personal information through blockchain assets and blockchain-based identity.
"So, we need to make sure that we preserve those kinds of First Amendment rights and that individual agencies or commissions don’t trample on those," Turner said. "I don't think you can have democracy or open and free societies unless you can also maintain financial privacy. And that's one of the key aspects that I think we've kind of lost in the last five or 10 years or so, really across the Western world."
Turner said that such advocacy for individual freedoms explains why crypto supporters have become a major constituency for the "MAGA Republican wing." He said that Trump at the conference will speak about crypto self-custody as well as the importance of maintaining financial privacy.
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"I do think a lot of this just has to do with what's going on with this capitalist, woke cultural split that we see going on both worldwide but primarily … in the Western world but also heavily in the U.S. with the red-versus-blue states or red-versus-blue zip codes," Turner said. "I think there is this definitely … red-versus-blue demographic. But interestingly enough, on the blue side of the demographic, in many ways, I think folks are much more willing to use new systems and new approaches to capitalism. So hopefully, this brings people together as opposed to dividing them."
Turner, currently a crypto company executive working in blockchain, noted that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. already supports Bitcoin campaign donations. Kennedy is also expected to speak at the conference, but despite initial talks of Vice President Harris possibly also joining after entering the presidential race, she reportedly declined to attend.
Having watched the evolution of the cryptocurrency industry after first getting into Bitcoin in 2012, Turner told Fox News Digital that he envisions "crypto capitalism as the future" to ensure property rights and drive the U.S. economy going forward, particularly in the context of artificial intelligence.
"The time is right to make sure that we can make those things happen," Turner said. "With regard to crypto-capitalism in general, I think that we need to make sure that we have free and frictionless markets as we go forward, especially when you look at things like AI, artificial intelligence, backend services are very likely going to be paid in crypto. And therefore, we need to ensure that, basically, the U.S. stays at the forefront of the tech economy right now."
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Over the past four years, Turner said he has witnessed many companies and projects moving to the United Arab Emirates, Singapore or Switzerland as opposed to establishing in the U.S.
"I think this is actually the future of Silicon Valley: decentralized tech and decentralized approaches to doing these things is the way we're going to be moving forward," Turner said.
"I want to really make sure that we take a positive focus with the tech," he said. "Build more freedom and sovereign-oriented technology to build those new parallel systems because, you know, obviously, we can see with everything that's gone on, especially the last five years, there's a lot of inherent fragility and problems with the current system that we're working under, particularly with the existing central bank fiat currencies and debt-based monetary system."
