Pirate Party of Finland May End Up In Court For Collecting Too Many Bitcoins | PirateTimes

Posted: March 27, 2015/Under: Creator, Josef Ohlsson Collentine, News, Pirate Parties/By: Josef Ohlsson Collentine

Pirate Party of Finland May End Up In Court For Collecting Too Many Bitcoins

March 27, 2015 · by Josef Ohlsson Collentine · in Pirate Party News

To fund their election campaign Pirate Party Finland (PPFI) is accepting bitcoins. Finnish law states that you are allowed to collect up to 1,500 Euros annually in anonymous donations. Since there is no precedent on bitcoin donations and it’s not recognized as a currency in Finland, the police have informed the party that “they have little idea on how bitcoin donations should be handled”.

The press spokesperson, Jonna Purojärvi, confirm that they have already reached over 1,500 Euros in anonymous bitcoin donations. This means that there might be a pending court-case around these donations which will establish a precedent in the legality of bitcoin donations in Finland. PPFI is hoping to gather enough bitcoins to challenge this in court.

Please notice, that Piraattipuolue is only allowed to gather funds from foreigners if they share similar ideological views, so if you feel you don’t share our idea of fair and open government, right to privacy and other great views, please do not donate. If you share the views of the Finnish Pirate Party you may donate to: 19PsBRc3qvyjVR2NKmZueD4A9ay6ZNbkZd

According to the blockchain for PPFI they got their first donation on September 19th last year. When they were about to run out of cash a Finnish pirate, Janne Paalijärvi, wrote a short guest post on a bitcoin site that got some attention. A “conservative party” picked it up and accused PPFI of “receiving illegal sponsorship”, creating a reverse effect than desired, causing even more money to be donated to PPFI. More than 26 bitcoins (~6,000 Euros) were donated in only two days (March 22nd and 23rd). In total PPFI has received a bit more than 47 Bitcoins (~11,500 Euro) in donations since the start.

About Josef Ohlsson Collentine

I’m a dual citizen (American/Swede) and try to integrate my reflections from a more global perspective if possible. I’m the organizational leader for Pirate Times and work actively to strengthen the pirate movement through this work as well as being the international contact for Piratpartiet (PPSE). Elected board member of PPSE for 2015-2018.
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Tags: bc, Bitcoin, court, Finland, Janne Paalijärvi, Jonna Purojärvi, PPFI

- guus
  
  Well if some of the major donators come forward, the problem will be solved, right?

- Jonna Purojärvi
  
  “Well if some of the major donators come forward, the problem will be solved, right?”
  
  If it happens before elections are over or before this has to be settled in court, it’s possible this will be solved that way – But still there might be some legal issues to be solved since the donators haven’t came forward from the start as the law requiers to my understanding. Also we wouldn’t mind making the case, since there is no legislation considering bitcoin, and with the case, we’d have some sort of legal status for it here in Finland – Which would be a huge step forward.

- Pingback: Pirate Party of Finland May End Up In Court For Collecting Too Many Bitcoins | Reddit Spy()

- Robin
  
  “Finnish law states that you are allowed to collect up to 1,500 Euros annually in anonymous donations.”
  “anonymous bitcoin donations”
  
  Should not be too hard to argue that Bitcoin donations are not anonymous but pseudonymous. Its not your fault that the language of the law is outdated.

- gaby de wilde
  
  Putting some limit on anonymous donations is a good idea. As mentioned detonators could provide their name or they could just return the excess coins.
  
  But maybe the donations could be marked to be used in 2016-2017-2018-etc ? As long as one can show that the money isn’t being used in 2015 things should be fine.
  
  The value of a “foreign” currency is hard to predict. Some flexibility would make sense just like limiting anon donations makes sense.
  
  Some kind of timed transfers could also be baked into the wallet and/or protocol and mark them as such. They could just return the coins and receive them the next year.