Jeremy Kauffman

He was the Libertarian nominee in the 2022 United States Senate election in New Hampshire.

Following an open investigation by the SEC regarding the issuance of a cryptocurrency token called "LBRY credit.", a federal judge in November 2022 ruled that LBC is legally a security that requires regulation by the SEC. Kauffman has not yet commented on whether he intends to appeal the decision or to settle with the SEC but has said the decision "threatens the entire U.S. cryptocurrency industry" by classifying "almost every cryptocurrency" as a security. Upon hearing that Gary Gensler would be the head of the SEC, Kauffman was hopeful that an M.I.T. professor who specialized in cryptocurrency would be fair to the new industry and to not be "a complete sociopath."

As of June 2022, Kauffman is running for United States Senate as a Libertarian in New Hampshire. In response to a question as to why he was running for office, he replied, "I'm the only one running that will actually make the government smaller". Among his key campaign issues are "abolishing the Federal Reserve, the Internal Revenue Service and child-labor laws", "making sure the lockdowns and restrictions can't happen again" and committing "to end the drug war". In an NHPR interview, Kauffman stated that he wanted "less democracy," elaborating that he does not want people in California and New York voting on his life in New Hampshire and that it is permissible to "let states disagree" under the U.S. system of federalism.

In April 2021, Kauffman was given access to Libertarian Party of New Hampshire (LPNH)'s official Twitter account soon after the state party was taken over by the Mises Caucus. Kauffman later made tweets on the LPNH account that received controversy, such as calling for child labor to be legalized, saying "All Republicans do about wokeness is whine. Libertarians have solutions; repeal the Civil Rights Act [of 1964]", and re-opening Gitmo "so that Anthony Fauci and every governor that locked their state down can be sent there, never again to be allowed inside of the United States". The pro-child labor tweet specifically received pushback from 2012 and 2016 Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson, saying "This isn't what libertarianism means to millions of Americans". The tweets later partly resulted in the resignation of the national Libertarian Party leader Joe-Bishop Henchman. Kauffman defended his actions by saying the tweets were good for libertarians, and accused national party leadership of being "woke neoliberal globalists".

Odysee, an open-source video-sharing website that uses the LBRY network, was also founded by Kauffman in 2020. While Kauffman has indicated that he would remove content from the Odysee platform that courts deem to be illegal, he has signaled support for the practice of putting 3D on the website by sharing a 3D gun blueprint file from his personal Twitter account.

In 2018, Kauffman joined the board of directors of the non-profit, the Free State Project. Kauffman believes that the Free State Project is the most effective way for libertarians to achieve "liberty in our lifetimes" and has debated this assertion in a public forum. Kauffman is also a member of the Libertarian Party's Mises Caucus.

Jeremy Kauffman was CEO of TopScore prior to formulating the idea for a version of YouTube that would be decentralized in its construction and operation. The result of this idea for a media and video viewing platform that claimed to be fully decentralized was called LBRY (pronounced as "library"). LBRY was launched in 2015. When asked about the purpose of LBRY and Odysee, Kauffman stated that while the LBRY blockchain could be used in a 'Wild West' kind of way, the main goal of the platform was to provide people with choices for content.

Jeremy Kauffman (born September 19, 1984) is an American entrepreneur and political activist known for founding and leading LBRY. Kauffman is also known as a vocal supporter and activist within the Free State Project, a movement designed to get 20,000 libertarians to move to the state of New Hampshire. Kauffman is also known for controversial tweets made on the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire's official account.

Kauffman was born on September 19, 1984 and grew up in Manchester, New Hampshire. He earned two Bachelor of Science degrees in physics and computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.