The Federal Election Agency in the US has approved the use of NFTs for raising funds during elections. The approval was made by the FEC to DataVault Holdings in an effort towards helping raise funds for political activities.
DataVault Holdings is a cloud-based data analytics service firm that manages data acquisition, analyzes, and deploys data for its clients. It was founded in 2018 by Alfred Blair Blaike III. DataVault is also known to be registered under Delaware law1 and has been in the business of selling NFTs.
The two NFT proposals
According to the FEC, the first proposal presented by DataVault to help politicians raise money via NFTs is that the company will give political committees customized NFTs which can be given to contributors to the committee.
When the NFT which can be in the form of audio, artwork, campaign literature, position papers, or other digital content, is transferred to any contributor after contributions are made to the committee, a fee from the contribution, must be given to DataVault for its service.
In the second proposal, the FEC explained that in addition to the first proposal, the political committee will award another NFT to contributors who willingly want to contribute a specific amount of money again to the committee.
‘”The second type of NFT would have “greater apparent significance” than the first type of NFT, but “would hold the same monetary value as the first NFT,”‘ the FEC said. “Here, too, the political committees would pay DataVault a fee any time they transferred an NFT to a contributor.”
DataVault to serve political individuals like non-political one
One of the grounds on which the FEC decided to allow the DataVault proposal to pull through is that they will give NFT services to political activities that are the same as that given to non-political individuals. “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.
Nathaniel Bradley, CEO of DataVault, noted that the approval from the FEC is essential in making the essence of blockchain part of the electoral system of the US. This approval is no surprise as in September, the firm proposed sending NFTs as souvenirs to contributors of political committees.
From Gubernatorial candidate Jared Polis to Donald Trump, there has been a stronger affinity for the use of NFTs in the US by public figures. Also, outside the US, individuals such as South Korean presidential candidate Lee Jae-Myung, planned to launch NFTs as a support project for contributors to his candidacy in January.
Although it was not successful as the government made NFTs taxable, it’s a sign that NFTs are becoming more relevant as a common use case.
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Five Things to Consider Before Buying NFTs
Six Reasons Why You Should Pay Attention to NFTs
