Rand Paul Accepts Bitcoin for Presidential Campaign
Kentucky Senator and presidential candidate Rand Paul is now accepting campaign donations in bitcoin.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who today formally announced his bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has begun accepting bitcoin donations.
Donors can select bitcoin from a number of available payment options, with bitcoin payments being enabled by processor BitPay.
Paul is perhaps the most high-profile American politician to accept bitcoin donations, and latest of a number of state and national Republicans to turn to the digital currency for fundraising support.
Last year, the US Federal Elections Commission gave its approval for bitcoin fundraising as a type of in-kind donation. States like Tennessee have since made some progress in clarifying those rules on the state level.
Bitcoin 'outlier'
Paul touched on the subject of bitcoin earlier this year during a panel discussion led by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington. Calling himself "an outlier" on "the bitcoin thing", the senator acknowledged his skepticism toward the digital currency.
"I've been fascinated by the concept of it, but I never would have purchased it myself. I'm just a little bit skeptical," he said at the time, according to a report from Bloomberg News.
During a 2014 interview, Paul suggested that the concept of digital currencies could be improved if they were backed by stocks.
An opthamologist by trade, Paul was elected to the US Senate in 2010 with significant support from the Tea Party movement, a collection of right-wing and libertarian-leaning groups that has since proven to be an influential – and controversial – force within the American political landscape.
Paul is one of several candidates, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, that will compete for Tea Party support during the Republican presidential primary.
Disclaimer: CoinDesk founder Shakil Khan is an investor in BitPay.
Image credit: Eric Francis / Shutterstock.com
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
These Three Metrics Show Bitcoin Found Strong Support Near $80,000
Onchain data shows multiple cost basis metrics confirm heavy demand and investor conviction around the $80,000 price level.
需要了解的:
- Bitcoin rebounded from the $80,000 region after a sharp correction from its October all time high, with price holding above the average entry levels of key metrics.
- The convergence of the True Market Mean, U.S. ETF cost basis, and the 2024 yearly cost basis around the low $80,000 range highlights this zone as a major area of structural support.
