The total value of tracked cryptocurrency donations made to the Ukrainian government as well as the military and charitable organizations has topped $37 million
Summary of the Crypto Donations Sent to the Ukrainian Government
Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Tether (USDT), and other cryptocurrencies are examples of alternative currencies. The figures are also based on projects that have been tracked and do not take into account factors such as fundraising efforts amongst individuals.
The “Reserve fund of Ukraine,” which is backed by the country’s native cryptocurrency exchange, Kuna, appears to be the most frequent receiver of cryptocurrency donations.
According to the exchange’s official Telegram channel, it has raised around $13 million in cryptocurrency for Ukraine, with the majority of the funds coming from Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT.
Come Back Alive, a non-governmental organization that claims to be assisting the Ukrainian Armed Forces in their resistance operations has received more than $7.2 million in Bitcoin donations to its wallet address, according to CoinDesk.
Among these are donations it had received previously, albeit insignificant amounts, during the War in Donbas, which began in 2014. Several Ukrainian crypto aficionados spoke with Cointelegraph about the charity, and all agreed that it was legitimate.
After that, there’s UkraineDAO, which is run by Nadya Tolokonnikova (of Pussy Riot, a Russian feminist protest music group), and which aims to raise funds for Ukrainian civil organizations by selling a single nonfungible token (also known as an NFT).
The current top bid for the NFT is $2.89 million USD, which is the largest amount available.
Aside from that, activists in the blockchain community have established the Unchain Fund to aid the Ukrainian people.
In addition to NEAR, Binance Coin (BNB), Binance USD (BUSD), and other altcoins, the effort supports a wide range of cryptocurrencies.
Since its inception, the fund has raised more than $1.5 million in cryptocurrency, the majority of which has come via NEAR token donations. Anna Tutova, a member of Unchain Fund and a well-known socialite in the crypto industry, spoke about her involvement in the fund:
“We raise money for medicine, evacuation and repair needs, food and clothes. We raise funds only in crypto and use multi-sig wallets to be completely transparent. Unchain fund is as well supported by Vitalik Buterin, Solana, Near, Celo foundation, Harmony, Polygon, Gnosis, Gitcoin and many more.”
Other prominent efforts include Braiins, the world’s oldest mining pool, which made a donation of 10 BTC as well as a share of its hash rate to Ukraine in order to aid the country’s reconstruction. RELI3F, a Web3 humanitarian aid project, has also given a total of 185 ETH to three cryptocurrency funds that support Ukraine thus far.
Ukrainian government Urged to Accept Other Crypto Donation
Crypto aficionados, on the other hand, are urging the Ukrainian government to broaden its acceptance of cryptocurrency donations beyond Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT, and to include other altcoins as well. Sunny Lu, co-founder, and CEO of Vechain, posted the following on Twitter on Monday:
In a blog post published around the same time as this one, Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum and creator of Polkadot (DOT) and Kusama, wrote:
In spite of the fact that cryptocurrency fundraising efforts for Ukraine have gained substantial pace, people have taken to social media to advise one another to be alert, to always check the legitimacy of the contribution links, and to be on the lookout for scammers.
Consider the following case in point: a suspected con artist has left comments on every article, claiming to be the official cryptocurrency address for assisting the Ukrainian government.
