• South Korea’s democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-Myung becomes the first presidential candidate to raise funds via an NFT. 
• The NFT will contain Lee’s image along with specific election pledges for those donating to his campaign. 

We have been seeing major politicians warming up to cryptocurrencies over the last year. In one of its first moves, South Korean presidential candidate Lee Jae-Myung is now planning to raise funds for his election campaign using non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

With his new strategy, Jae-Myung is also planning to attract younger voters who are aware of NFTs. As per reports, people donating money for the campaign will receive NFTs issued to them by the party. As we can predict, these NFTs will contain images of the candidate along with his pledges.

As we know, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are blockchain-based tokens that represent unique assets such as digital content, digital media, or a piece of art. The committee said that the NFTs will serve as a new medium of messages to voters.

Besides, it will also help in bringing political memorabilia to an entirely new generation of digital natives. Speaking to local news publication Yonhap News, Kim Nam-kook, a campaign committee official said:

As the young generation in their 20s and 30s are interested in emerging technologies, including virtual assets, NFTs and the metaverse, this type of fundraising could appeal to them.

Lee’s Democratic Party will issue an NFT including Lee’s image along with specific election pledges for those donating to the campaign. Lee further added: “It is high time that we undertake innovative experiments to enhance our understanding of these future technologies and change perceptions of digital currencies and NFTs”.

Setting Up a New Precedence of NFT-led Political Campaigns

South Korea’s Democratic Party has been pushing for ways to accept donations in digital assets and NFTs. This is just to highlight the move to future technology thereby wooing millennial voters.

If Lee manages to raise considerable political funds through this digital platform, he will become the world’s first political presidential candidate to issue an NFT for campaign financing.

However, the involvement of politicians with NFTs isn’t new. Last year in October, U.S. Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang co-released an NFT in collaboration with Bankless. In Arizona, Senate hopeful Blake Masters is also offering “zero to One” NFTs based on his early cover art for his book “Zero to One”. Back then he said:

This is the first NFT we’re issuing to help share the book’s cool history, and to help raise money for my U.S. Senate campaign, so we can help use ‘Zero to One’ thinking to save America from the brink of destruction.