Katherine Ross

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Friday that he was suspending his independent presidential bid and throwing his support behind Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term as US president.&nbsp;



The announcement took place during a speech in Phoenix, Arizona. Kennedy’s team, ahead of the event, said the speech would address his “path forward.”



“In an honest system, I believe that I would have won the election,” he said in his remarks, during which he sharply criticized the Biden administration.&nbsp;



Rumors swirled earlier this week that Kennedy planned to drop out and endorse presidential hopeful Donald Trump. NBC News <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/rfk-jr-plans-speech-path-forward-talk-potentially-backing-trump-rcna167606">reported</a> that the two campaigns were even plotting a joint appearance. The two were also speakers earlier this year at Bitcoin 2024.&nbsp;



Earlier this week, Kennedy’s running mate Nicole Shanahan noted in a podcast appearance that their campaign had a limited set of options, which included staying in or “joining forces” with former President Donald Trump.&nbsp;



Kennedy’s official independent platform focused on small businesses, bitcoin and blockchain technology — which he claimed are “essential to human freedom — and “tax fairness” among other issues.&nbsp;



He, like Trump, also made an appearance at Bitcoin 2024 back in July.&nbsp;



Kennedy <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/presidential-candidate-rfk-jr-on-crypto-trump">told Blockworks earlier this year</a> that he’s “happy” about Trump’s crypto commitment.&nbsp;



“I think it’s a good thing for our country. Commitment to crypto is a commitment to freedom and transparency. I’m not going to question if it was a political decision, I’m happy he did it,” he said at the Consensus conference back in May.



At the same conference — way before President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race — Kennedy claimed that he could beat Trump.



However, his campaign has since faced a few <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/19/robert-kennedy-jr-july-fundraising-00174760">hardships</a> since then including slowing campaign contributions and losing out on some ballots, including <a href="https://www.kennedy24.com/kennedy_appeals_ruling_new_york_ballot_access_residency_case">New York</a>.



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Donald Trump

Crypto-friendly RFK Jr. suspends independent presidential bid

James Cirrone

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., told a stage Friday at Bitcoin Miami that his presidential campaign would accept bitcoin donations to cheers and whistles. Novel announcement right?



Not really. Dozens of politicians, political action committees, and party organizations have already accepted bitcoin (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BTC</a>) and crypto as legitimate forms of donations. Not all lawmakers are hostile toward digital assets like Senators Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who recently had to push back <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/warren-crypto-bill-delayed">the introduction of their crypto anti-money laundering bill</a> due to lack of support, according to insiders.&nbsp;



Even past presidential contenders have accepted bitcoin, though Kennedy made the distinction that his campaign will be the first to use the Lightning Network.&nbsp;



Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., allowed people to donate to him in bitcoin for his 2016 presidential campaign, a move The New York Times deemed “secretive” at the time.&nbsp;



“Presidential fund-raising, never known for its transparency, may have just become even more secretive,” the NYT’s Eric Lichtblau wrote on April 9, 2015, shortly after Paul announced his candidacy.



Lichtblau continued, “Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky waded into new waters when he said he would accept campaign contributions in Bitcoins, a largely untraceable virtual currency, in amounts up to $100.”



Since the hesitant days of the 2016 election year, crypto has become more widely adopted by various politicians on both sides of the aisle.



Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Andrew Yang both accepted crypto donations for their respective 2020 presidential bids. Yang’s new political party, the Forward Party, accepts 60 different crypto tokens.&nbsp;



Other high-profile Republicans who are comfortable with crypto donations include Sen. Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming, Rep. Warren Davidson from Ohio, and former Republican congressional and senatorial candidates Laura Loomer and Blake Masters. 



The National Republican Congressional Committee also accepts crypto donations, becoming the first party committee to do so, Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/2021/06/17/house-gop-nrcc-cryptocurrency-campaign-donations" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a> in June 2021.



Beyond the growing adoption among various politicians and political arms, making donations to candidates in the form of bitcoin has been allowed for just shy of ten years now.&nbsp;



In fact, it’s been expressly permitted since May 2014 by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the regulatory agency responsible for enforcing campaign finance law in the US.



According to the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act, a political contribution can be <a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title52/subtitle3/chapter301&amp;edition=prelim" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">defined</a> as “any gift, subscription, loan, advance, or deposit of money or anything of value made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office.”



Working under that definition, the FEC <a href="https://www.fec.gov/updates/ao-2014-02-campaign-may-accept-bitcoins-as-contributions/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">concluded</a> “that bitcoins may be accepted as contributions under the Act.”



So, when it comes down to it, crypto has been a part of American political life for a while now. And with <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/doj-claws-back-ftx-donations">the FTX disaster still unraveling</a>, the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-responds-to-coinbase-request-for-action-no">SEC still providing murky guidance</a> on whether digital assets are securities, and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-presidential-candidates-crypto">a presidential election right around the corner</a>, crypto is very likely to continue to be a part of the national conversation.



Updated May 23, 2023 at 5:13 pm ET: A previous version of this article incorrectly listed Cynthia Lummis as a senator from Wisconsin. Cynthia Lummis is a senator from Wyoming.



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