Crypto Donations Pour in After Ukraine Government Asks for Bitcoin and Ether – Since Russia’s invasion, Ukraine has raised more than $17 million in cryptocurrency donations. About 24 hours after the Ukrainian government solicited donations in bitcoin, ether, and tether, more than $10 million was donated straight to the crypto wallets established by the government.
On Saturday morning, the Ukrainian government began accepting cryptocurrency donations. “Stand with the people of Ukraine,” said Ukraine’s official Twitter account. Donations in cryptocurrencies are now accepted. “Bitcoin, ethereum, and USDT are the three major cryptocurrencies.”
A BTC address, as well as addresses for ETH and USDT donations, are included in the tweet. Ukraine’s vice prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, also tweeted a similar statement.
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Elliptic, a blockchain data analytics startup, issued the following statement on Sunday in response to the Ukrainian government’s request for cryptocurrency donations:
“Since the invasion began, the Ukrainian government and NGOs assisting the military had raised $17.2 million through thousands of cryptocurrency donations.”
“The Ukrainian government’s Twitter accounts have made calls for cryptocurrency donations. Elliptic reported that the addresses referenced in the tweets had already collected $10.6 million in 13,670 transactions.”
This includes a single $1.86 million donation that appears to have come from the sale of non-fungible tokens that were originally meant to raise donations for Julian Assange.”
The blockchain analytics company went on to say:
The majority of donations so far have been made in bitcoin and ether, with US dollar stablecoins accounting for a considerable fraction of the total.
Elliptic went on to say that cryptocurrency supporters aren’t just giving money to the Ukrainian government. “People are also sending NFTs to the Ethereum account of the Ukrainian government.” The worth of one of these NFTs is around $300, according to the firm.
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Ukraine’s ambassador to Austria from 2014 until 2021, Olexander Scherba, reacted on the Ukrainian government’s request for cryptocurrency donations. He wrote on Twitter:
“To individuals who want to contribute to the Bitcoin community. In Ukraine, Bitcoin is now considered legal tender.”
Aside from donations to the Ukrainian government, bitcoin donations have been made to one non-governmental organization (NGO). “Come Back Alive” has raised more than $5 million in bitcoin. The group has received 170.05722596 BTC at the time of writing, which is worth around $6.6 million at the current bitcoin price.
