Crypto Donations to Ukraine Near USD 20M

At least USD 18.9m worth of cryptoassets has been donated so far to the Ukrainian government and the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) providing support to the Ukrainian military after Russia launched an invasion of the country on February 24.

As of February 27th, 23:50 UTC, data accumulated by the research firm Elliptic shows that the majority of donations (56.4%) were in bitcoin (BTC), with ethereum (ETH) accounting for another 31.8%. 

Stablecoins, those pegged to fiat currencies, constitute 10.9% of the donations, and less than 1% are in “other” cryptoassets.

Cryptoassets turned out to be a useful method to raise money for organizations in Ukraine, especially after banks and fiat-based fundraising platforms started to implement restrictive measures.

On February 25, American membership platform Patreon banned the ‘Come Back Alive’, a nonprofit raising money to support the Ukrainian military. “We don’t allow Patreon to be used for funding weapons or military activity,” the platform said in a blog post.

However, using crypto, the NGO managed to resume its funding operations. Founded in 2014, ‘Come Back Alive’ provides a range of military equipment, training services, and medical supplies to the Ukrainian military. It even funded the development of a drone-based reconnaissance and targeting system for Ukrainian artillery units.

In another example, members of the investment group PleasrDAO, in collaboration with the non-fungible token (NFT) studio Trippy Labs and a Russian art collective Pussy Riot member, formed a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) dubbed UkraineDAO, which has raised around USD 3.5m so far.

Furthermore, on Saturday, Ukraine’s official Twitter account posted several pleas for crypto donations. The account has also pinned the message, which includes bitcoin, ethereum, and tether (USDT) addresses.

Per Elliptic, the addresses listed have received USD 12.1m worth of crypto donations across 15,947 transactions by Sunday night. Notably, a single donation worth USD 1.86m has originated from the sale of NFTs intended to raise funds for the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the firm said.

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Learn more:
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