Brock Pierce--philanthropist, entrepreneur, crypto twitter mainstay, and co-founder of the EOS Alliance, Block.one, Blockchain Capital, Mastercoin, and stablecoin issuer Tether--has an important announcement for the people of the United States and the world: as of Monday, July 6th, Brock has entered the race for the US Presidential office with the hashtag #BrocktheVote.
Pierce’s announcement isn’t the only unorthodox third-party presidential announcement to come over the course of this race, or even over the course of this weekend: on July 5th, none other than rapper Kanye West announced on Twitter that he would be running for office. He was immediately endorsed by technologist and entrepreneur Elon Musk, who tweeted, "you have my full support!" in response to Ye's announcement.
A campaign of "conscious capitalism"
Pierce, who describes himself as a “conscious capitalist”, seems to be running on a future-positive, tech-focused platform: “COVID-19 has brought humanity together in a way where we can reassess our values and decide what freedom really means to us,” he said in a campaign advertisement on YouTube. “Technology should be embraced, not feared. It is here to enhance our institutions and improve our lives.”
Pierce pointed specifically to the infrastructural weaknesses that were highlighted by the distribution of the CARES Act stimulus Payments : “if our government was using 21st-century technology all of those stimulus and unemployment checks would have been received by the people in need much sooner,” he said. “Technology is a solution that we should be proactively using.”
“[...] This nation was built by entrepreneurs, and this nation will be rebuilt by entrepreneurs driving us into a 21st-century economy,” he added.
A growing number of "Crypto Candidates"
Due to the 11th-hour nature of his campaign announcement, it may be likely that Pierce’s campaign stands a better chance of influencing the current political discussion rather than putting Pierce into the Oval Office; it is not clear whether or not Pierce’s campaign has begun the process of filing the necessary paperwork to appear on state election ballots.
Brock Pierce isn’t the only tech-focused candidate to run for office in the United States this year. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who ended his presidential campaign earlier this year, ran on a platform that included the development of community-based digital currency credits.
Additionally, Jonathan Herzog, a Democratic Congressional candidate in New York’s 10th district and alumnus of the Yang campaign, has been described as 2020’s new “Crypto Candidate.”
