As of Monday, 28th February morning, $20 million in bitcoin had been contributed in support of Ukraine’s resistance to Russian invasion as Ukraine’s government is directly collecting cryptocurrency donations, adding to a crowdfunding campaign that has raised more Bitcoin, Ether, and other cryptocurrencies since Friday.
This follows the country’s official Twitter account sharing two cryptocurrency wallet addresses on Saturday, through which it could take Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Tether donations directly.
Ukraine is currently embroiled in an armed confrontation with Russia, the country’s larger neighbor, which invaded the country last week after years of hostility, sending forces to move on Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. The move has sparked international outrage and concern.
According to transaction information accessible for the wallets and statistics from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, the addresses posted by these accounts have received hundreds of donations worth more than $3 million in less than 24 hours. Elliptic co-founder Tom Robinson said that the median gift was roughly $95.
Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Monday that at least 102 civilians had been murdered in Ukraine, with hundreds more injured, though the true count could be much higher.
Ukraine, a 44 million-strong country, has requested donations via its official Twitter account as it fights Russia’s march. On Saturday, one such tweet specifically requested cryptocurrency donations. “Stand with the people of Ukraine,” it said, sharing the addresses of two cryptocurrency wallets. Donations in cryptocurrencies are now accepted. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT are all digital currencies.
Justin Sun, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, made several posts in support of the fundraising drive, including one inviting Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to “join hands to gather support for the Ukraine assistance,” and suggesting that if Buterin gave, he would be “glad to match.”
Buterin began promoting UkraineDAO’s campaign, which stated that the money would be donated to “Ukrainian people who assist those suffering from Putin’s war” and connected to The Return Alive Foundation’s website.
“This is a monumental moment in the history of humanitarian donation on a global scale,” Sun said. “Every government, thought leaders, high-profile public figures, and everyday Joes can make transparent donations,” he added.
After that, Tomicah Tillemann, a former State Department diplomat and digital policy specialist, tweeted that he had “verified directly with Ukrainian ambassador @olex scherba that the addresses are correct and under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian government.”
Wire transfers, which are used to send money overseas, can be expensive, slow, and unreliable, which is why, according to Tillemann, crypto donations are advantageous in this case.
“Digital assets are frequently the only way to give rapid, direct assistance to people in international combat zones and humanitarian crises,” he said.
Celsius founder and CEO Alex Mashinsky announced on Saturday that he had transferred a second Ether gift to the Ukraine wallet, which contained at least 126 tokens, or roughly $352 000 at current values, as of Saturday afternoon. Bloomberg reported that he had personally donated about $10,000 in Ether.
The two bitcoin wallets had received roughly $10.3 million as of about 6 a.m. EET on Monday, according to Blockchain.com’s wallet search tool, with millions already transferred out of the wallets, presumably by the Ukrainian government.
The entire amount of cryptocurrency donations to Ukraine, on the other hand, might be far larger. Elliptic, a bitcoin security firm, updated a blog post on Monday, claiming that the Ukrainian government and NGOs had raised $20 million in cryptocurrency donations since Russia’s invasion began. A single donation of $3 million in Bitcoin was purportedly made at one point.
To raise funds for Ukraine, non-fungible tokens are also being sold. Reli3f, a web3-founded humanitarian aid organization, raised more than $1 million on Friday through an NFT collection that sold out in 30 seconds, according to the organization.