In order to repel the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian government is seeking donations in crypto.
Tweets from the government indicate that wallets for Bitcoin and Ethereum have already received a total of $4.9 million in cryptocurrency. Ethereum wallets received nearly $3 million in donations on Saturday.
As of the same time, the Bitcoin wallet had already received nearly one million dollars of bitcoin, some of which had already been sent.
In a tweet posted by Ukraine’s official Twitter account, Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov offered addresses for donating bitcoin, ether and the stablecoin tether (USDT).
Civilians-turned-refugees in Ukraine report losing access to their account balances and credit cards due to the ongoing war. As of Feb. 26, over 150,000 people had fled Ukraine, according to the United Nations (UN).
Ethereum’s Russian-born co-founder, Vitalik Buterin shared decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) initiative that focuses exclusively on Ukraine while there was confusion over the intended use of the crypto donations.
Nadya Tolokonnikova, a member of Pussy Riot, led UkraineDAO to release a 1/1 nonfungible token (NFT) of the Ukrainian flag in order to raise funds for Ukrainian nonprofits helping victims of Putin’s war.
Despite not being confirmed, it now seems likely that communications to the Ukrainian government’s addresses will be used directly by the government, and that communications to the DAO will be redirected to the welfare of citizens through an NGO.
Prominent crypto entrepreneurs stepped in to assist Ukrainians as soon as the Russia-Ukraine war broke out. FTX CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried was one of the first traders from Ukraine to receive monetary assistance from FTX.
