United States senator Bernie Sanders, a Presidential hopeful as a candidate for the Democratic nomination up against Hillary Clinton and whose entire campaign funding comes predominantly from donations is now accepting bitcoin, perfectly coinciding with his image as a grassroots candidate.
With about 2 million donors, 5.7 million contributions at an average of $27 to a total of $138.9 million, 99.98% of which are campaign donations, Bernie Sanders has the numbers to back his claim as a grass roots candidate.
It’s only prudent on his part then, that he’s perfectly willing for his campaign to start accepting donations in bitcoin.
A Comedy Central debate pitting Republican front-runner for the Presidential nomination Donald Trump and Democratic hopeful for the Presidency Bernie Sanders shows the latter candidate seeking donations. Donations in any way he can get it, including the cryptocurrency.
“I would like to ask for money. If you’ve got anything, any small change…anything under a dollar I’ll take it. If you’ve got a gift card that’s partially used, we could use it,” the Senator stated in his closing statement while rounding up the debate, before adding without seeming to fully understand the cryptocurrency:
If you have parts of a bitcoin, we’ll almost have one full bitcoin.
While the program is of course satire played out between two impersonators of the Presidential hopefuls, it is yet another mainstream outlet where bitcoin gets a mention, slowly but surely making its way into the consciousness of the masses.
Bitcoin’s quick mention in the satirical debate follows a prominent mention in the highest grossing film of 2016 to date in Deadpool. The Marvel superhero’s best friend accepts bitcoin in a bar and the scene even contains a bitcoin sticker complete with the cryptocurrency’s logo.
Although restricted to fleeting mentions so far in mainstream outlets, writers of films and sketch pieces often tend to tap into subjects that often strike a chord of interest in popular culture.
Beyond the plug for Bitcoin, the video is worth your time just for Donald Trump’s impersonation alone. The video can be seen below. The bitcoin mention comes in at 38m28s:
Hat-tip to Redditor: fpvhawk
Screenshot from Comedy Central.