Alexey Navalny's presidential campaign raised six million dollars — almost a quarter of which came in Bitcoins

Between December 2016 and April 2018, Alexey Navalny raised almost 373 million rubles ($6 million) for his presidential campaign, according to his manager, Leonid Volkov. The campaign collected money by various means, including Bitcoins (which accounted for nearly a quarter of all donations). Volkov says Navalny received money from more than 100,000 people.

Navalny’s presidential run ended when Russia’s Central Election Commission refused to register his candidacy because of his (contentious) felony record. The campaign managed to spend 368 million rubles, with 150,000 rubles in salaries and roughly 90 million rubles in campaign materials and demonstration costs.

Volkov says about half the unspent remaining 5 million rubles ($80,200) is tied up in the frozen accounts of the liquidated “Fifth Season” nonprofit — a legal entity Navalny’s team repurposed to serve as the organizational basis of the presidential campaign. The rest of the money is apparently meant for tax payments.