Cryptocurrency Influencer, John McAfee will contest for American Presidency come 2020

Avid cryptocurrency supporter and influencer John McAfee will participate in the next presidential election. If given the ticket of the Libertarian Party, the cybersecurity expert tweeted yesterday that he would contest on the platform. He also said that he would create a new party if he was not given the opportunity to run under the Libertarian party.

In 2015, he announced that he would join the 2016 presidential race under a new party, “Cyber party” but later opted to go with the Libertarian party after he was contacted by a party representative. The party later fielded former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson for President and former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld for Vice President after a primary which some sections claimed was skewed.

Before he became cryptocurrency’s poster child, McAffe was well known as a cybersecurity expert, creating the popular McAfee antivirus software.

In February, McAfee declared that he was no longer a member of the Libertarian party. In his tweet at the time, he pledged loyalty to the ideals of Senator Ron Paul, whose Libertarian views were contrary to party leadership. He also alleged that the party leadership did not have a firm stance on its principles.

Campaigning for Cryptocurrency Community

In his tweet yesterday, McAfee said that his presidential bid will serve as a rallying point for cryptocurrency campaigns. Reminiscent of Ron Paul’s remarks that his campaigns, which included pitches to ineligible voters in schools, was not just about the POTUS seat but a means of propagating his Libertarian views. He is big on digitalization; in the last campaigns, he said then-candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were not fit to lead the country to the digital age. Speaking to CNN Money, he said he had “huge underground following on the web” which would guarantee his victory.

McAffe might as well use his next presidential campaign as an avenue to further the cause of cryptocurrency in the United States. As it seems, he would not be short of support—several tweeter users responded to his post offering encouragement and volunteering. No doubt, McAfee would champion the move for more privacy and decentralization. Back in 2015, he said, “We are losing privacy at an alarming rate — we have none left,” lamenting the excessive monitoring of citizens by the government.

With the huge and growing popularity of cryptocurrency in the US and beyond, it would be interesting to see what impact the community would have on the elections, come 2020.

Solomon Sunny is the market reporter for Smartereum, one of the global leaders in Ethereum, blockchain and currency news. He produces technical price updates on digital currencies and writes recent developments about blockchain.

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