The famous developer of software, Jameson Lopp, who has also founded the entity known as “Casa”, has made an announcement on 19th September 2021 that he has initiated a new project under the name “bitcoinpoliticians.org”. The aim of the project is to examine the financial disclosures made by the US politicians which will also separately maintain a record of the data on its own. Lopp is of the view that the project will bring transparency within the BTC ownership. He claims to have already examined 13% of the financial disclosures of US politicians.
Owning Bitcoins amongst US politicians is not a new thing. In fact, many of the politicians in the US, whether they are in the Government or in the opposition, own Bitcoins. There was however a time when the majority of the US politicians had criticized the very existence of virtual currencies, including Bitcoin. However, over time, the mindset is changed apparently because Bitcoin became a global phenomenon. Especially when there was a pandemic outbreak, Bitcoin turned out to be the most adopted investment vehicle. Yet there are still a large number of US politicians who hate Bitcoins and the entire crypto space. But recently, many of lawmakers have been advocating in favor of virtual currencies because they have adjudged benefits therein.
As per the US laws of taxation, each member of Congress is required to make full disclosure of their financials as well as of their dependents. The disclosure has to be “public” which means that the disclosures can be accessed by anyone who wishes to examine them. The same rule of disclosure is applied to bureaucrats and public officials as well.
Recently, a few allegations were raised against top executives of US Government offices, including the Chairman of US Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell. Resultantly, the disclosures made by Powell are currently under scrutiny to examine whether the allegations are right or wrong. Meanwhile, a project has been initiated by a famous software developer, Jameson Lopp. According to Lopp, the project is designed to record the Bitcoin holding of US politicians as well as bureaucrats. The project has been named by Lopp as “bitcoinpoliticians.org”.
Lopp claims that through the project, the public will be aware as to who in the Government owns any Bitcoins. He suggested that manually examining the financial disclosures is not only time taking but also exhaustive. At one point in time, the examiner loses interest and in the process, important aspects of financial disclosures can skip the examiner’s attention. However, the task of examining the financials has become easier through the project because the project is going to be crowdsourced.
Lopp also claims that through the project he has already examined 13% of the financial disclosures made by politicians and bureaucrats.