Ukraine Gets $5 Million in Crypto Donations

To repel the Russian invasion, the Ukraine government is seeking cryptocurrency donations. According to government tweets, wallets for Bitcoin and Ethereum have already received $4.9 million in cryptocurrency. On Saturday, nearly $3 million was donated to Ethereum wallets.

The Bitcoin wallet had received nearly $1 million in bitcoin, some of which had already been sent. Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov offered addresses for donating Bitcoin, Ether, and the stablecoin Tether (USDT) in a tweet posted by Ukraine’s official Twitter account.

Due to the ongoing conflict, civilians-turned-refugees in Ukraine report losing access to their account balances and credit cards. According to the United Nations, over 150,000 people had fled Ukraine as of February 26. (UN).

While there was confusion over the intended use of the crypto donations, Ethereum’s Russian-born co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, shared a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) initiative that focuses solely on Ukraine.

Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova led UkraineDAO in releasing a 1/1 nonfungible token (NFT) of the Ukrainian flag in order to raise funds for Ukrainian nonprofits assisting victims of Putin’s war.

Despite the lack of confirmation, it now appears likely that communications to Ukrainian government addresses will be used directly by the government, while communications to the DAO will be redirected to the welfare of citizens via an NGO.

As soon as the Russia-Ukraine conflict erupted, prominent cryptocurrency entrepreneurs stepped in to help Ukrainians. FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was one of the first Ukrainian traders to receive financial assistance from FTX.

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