How crypto is playing a key role in helping Ukraine in the war?

Russia is continuously on the verge to expand into Ukrainian borders vigorously. It has been two weeks now since the war has started between Russia and Ukraine. About 1.2 million Ukrainian citizens have migrated to other nations and almost 2,000 people are dead. The other destruction in terms of property, collateral damage amount to thousands of millions of dollars at this moment. No one, absolutely no one can predict the exact amount of losses the country is suffering right now and what will be the course of action to revive it.

With the ongoing war situations in both nations, cryptocurrencies have emerged as a big hope and support, especially for the people of Ukraine. Cryptocurrencies are permissionless, contactless, and have the ability for cross-border transactions. Thus, it is helping Ukrainian refugees to trade money out of the country before the value depreciates due to geopolitical tensions around the world.

Ukraine has managed to use crypto in an efficient way than any other country till now. The country is accepting all forms of donations in crypto through various entities to support its military army. The Government of Ukraine along with many non-profit organizations (NGOs) are appealing for cryptocurrency donations through their social media handles. They are also posting their alphanumeric string addresses of the digital wallet so that people can donate easily. And because it is a cryptocurrency, it only takes a few minutes to reflect in the wallet.

Till now, the Ukrainian government and NGOs have raised £7.5 million worth of Bitcoin while Ethereum stands second in place with £3.2 million. Also, Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov’s digital wallet received $7.9 million worth of crypto donations from almost 11,500 donors. The report is generated by Elliptic as it tracks the movement of cryptocurrency and another digital coin on the blockchain.

How to donate crypto to Ukraine?

The safe way to donate and to make sure your donations are on the right path is to donate to the Ukraine Government directly. Anyone can use Ukraine Government’s official digital wallet addresses provided on their Twitter handle. Also, the post provides a Bitcoin wallet address and an Ethereum wallet address. It also urges the users to donate in USDT and DOT, the native cryptocurrencies of Tether and Polkadot respectively.

The sources suggest that the post holds vital credibility and authenticity as it hasn’t been taken down or claimed by political authorities. Hence, one can seriously rely on the provided addresses to donate. To make the donations the users should have a valid digital wallet bearing legitimate funds for transactions. The users need to feed the recipient’s digital wallet address and the amount wishes to donate for the cause. Moreover, readers are informed that a certain amount of gas fees does apply to the transactional amount and it differs from blockchain to blockchain.

In addition, anyone having a digital wallet can make donations to nonprofit and welfare organizations. Many NGOs, welfare associations, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) have come into existence since the tensions rise over Ukraine and Russia. These organizations started to gather funds as much as possible to aid the military army, supplies, medical aid, and refugees base camps. Some trusts like Come Back Alive, Ukraine DAO, Voice of Children are among the popular organizations at present to cater to the humanitarian cause in Ukraine.

Likewise, Support Ukrainian Sovereignty is a fundraising organization established on the third-party platform Endaoment. It has raised more than $650,000 in crypto and will be distributed equally for humanitarian causes in Ukraine among,

- Revived Soldiers Ukraine
- NOVA Ukraine
- US-Ukraine Foundation
- International Committee of the Red Cross
- Hope for Ukraine
- LELEKA Foundation
- Ukraine Children’s Aid Fund

Also, read - After FTX, Binance to donate $10M to Ukraine

How NFTs are playing their part to support Ukraine?

Surprisingly, many organizations and supporters are using NFTs to help Ukraine Government. Even, Fedorov suggested through his Twitter handle that the government is looking to issue the country’s own NFT collection for the betterment of Ukrainian armed forces. Some of the Ukrainian NFT artists themselves are putting together their collection for bidding to support their country.

Ukraine’s famous artist Waone Interesni Kazki is working to sell his NFT collection to extend his support. It is estimated to raise $7,000 from the paintings like The Seed of a Good Idea, Beta to Alpha Transition, and Prisoned Mind. These NFTs are quoted at $290 / £220 each for sale. Kazki wishes to divide the funds in half between Ukraine’s defense army and Medical supplies.

Holy Water, the buying and selling platform for NFT is accumulating over 500 Ukrainian artists and their NFTs to raise money. The maximum team members of the platform are Ukrainian and live in the country presently. Each NFT will be started for bid at 0.08 ETH ($235 / £170) aiming to collect at least $1 million.

As the second round of talks winds up between Russia and Ukraine, it is has been established that the temporary suspension of fighting was agreed upon for the safe evacuation of civilians.