Litecoin founder Charlie Lee may be the latest recruit to the Yang Gang after he received high praise from the presidential hopeful for “being such a pioneer”.

Andrew Yang – who describes himself as a problem solver and entrepreneur – has included Lee on his list of names he hopes to “build the future” with.

Failed first, but tried again

Litecoin founder Lee started the now fifth-largest cryptocurrency back in October 2011 following a failed attempt with his first project – called Fairbix – that also used a Proof-of-Work hashing protocol.

Fairbix failed due to rumblings within the project community that the development team pre-mined about 7 million Fairbix coins prior to its release.

This caught the attention of malicious attackers who discovered a major software bug in the first few weeks of the blockchain’s launch, which was eventually destroyed as a result of a 51% attack.

The episode taught Lee that using a pre-mine was not the right choice to start a cryptocurrency and he would rather his coin be accepted organically by a community of followers – similar to what happened with Bitcoin in January 2009.

Used for payments

Today, Litecoin is gaining traction as a method of payment. A recent example (above) shows the currency being used to order a takeaway using Uber Eats and the payment processing service of mainstream digital bank Revolut.

Lee’s creation is considered by many as one of the few projects that can claim to be truly decentralised, due to it not having a pre-mine and its organic distribution over its seven-year history.

Yang endorses open blockchains

The backing by Yang highlights the US presidential contender’s endorsement of open and decentralised blockchain projects that dominate the market capitalisation of the industry today. With the impending launch of a number of closed blockchains by big players like Facebook and JP Morgan, it’s good to see Yang highlighting more open and community-based projects like Litecoin.

Following Yang’s recent appearance on the stage at Consensus New York, it looks like he has been hitting the campaign trail harder than any other Democratic nominee, appearing at multiple rallies with his ‘Yang Gang’ and making a number of high-profile media appearances.

His social media following and popularity exploded after an impressive appearance on the popular Joe Rogan podcast in February this year, which was seen by over 3 million people on YouTube and took his Twitter following from 50,000 to now closer to 300,000 ahead of the first Democratic presidential debates.

If elected as the new US president, he has promised “to promote legislation that provides clarity in the cryptocurrency/digital asset market” by implementing a number of specific initiatives like “defining what a token is and when it is a security” and providing clarity on “which federal agencies have regulatory power over the crypto/digital assets space”.

As his popularity grows, it will be interesting to see if the crypto meme army joins forces with the Yang Gang to take both campaigns to the moon.