One of Josh Mandel’s final edicts as state treasurer was to allow Ohio businesses to pay their taxes with bitcoin.
Taxpayers could put cryptocurrency into a third-party processor that converted it to dollars and deposited the money into state accounts. Ohio was the first in the nation to implement such a program, making it a “leader in blockchain technology,” Mandel boasted.
Less than a year later, officials disbanded the payment system because Mandel broke state law.
The popularity of cryptocurrency has since increased, but it remains far from mainstream. That hasn’t stopped Mandel from drawing attention to it in his bid for U.S. Senate, declaring Ohio must be “pro-God, pro-family, pro-bitcoin.”
The issue is unlikely to move the needle significantly with GOP primary voters. Still, it plays into the rhetoric of Mandel and other populist Republicans who cast doubt on government institutions and want to disrupt the current system.
“You have trouble believing those are the top three things in an equal proportion,” said David Niven, a political scientist who worked for former Gov. Ted Strickland. “But I do think it serves a purpose for that kind of Republican to identify as thoroughly as possible with a kind of anti-government, fierce personal independence creed.”
Increasing use of cryptocurrency
A quick refresher: Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that includes Bitcoin and alternatives like Ethereum and Cardano. It operates on blockchain technology to record and verify transactions, which allows users to control the process instead of a third-party authority like a bank.
“We have this increasingly growing imbalance in society between the people or companies who control these intermediaries, whether they be Big Tech companies or banks, and the people who are relying on them,” said Patrick Berarducci, an Ohio native who works for a blockchain company in New York.
While interest in cryptocurrency isn’t widespread, it does touch multiple…
