South Korea’s presidential candidate announces NFT fundraise

The leading candidate for the South Korean presidency has announced a fundraiser based on non-fungible tokens.

Per the Korea Times’ report, Lee Jae-myung, the ruling Democratic Party’s candidate in the 2022 presidential elections, will be giving NFTs to donors to his campaign. The news comes despite earlier concerns that such fundraises may violate the Political Funds Act or the Public Official Election Act.

Donors will not exactly be buying NFTs. They will be receiving NFTs including a picture of Lee and a list of his policies as a kind of memento for their donation.

The move is part of broader outreach from the Lee campaign to young voters. This push has included talks in support of digital assets as well as advocacy for NFTs in gaming. The Lee campaign is calling it the first use of NFTs for a national presidential campaigns finance in the world. 

While Lee’s NFT fundraise may be the first of its kind, the crypto industry has been playing a growing role in campaign donations recently. In the U.S., former first lady Melania Trump recently launched an NFT platform. The first offering was a tokenized watercolor of former president Donald Trump’s eyes.