By Nathan Ferguson
An amount of more than $70M in crypto assets has been collected by Ukraine in crypto assets since Russia started invading its jurisdiction. The authorities of the country have utilized the respective amount to purchase military equipment as well as humanitarian help. A report was published by Chainalysis (a blockchain data company) on February 24. The platform disclosed the respective figure in that report.
Ukraine Gathers $70 Million in Donations in Crypto Assets Since the Russian Conflict Started
Chainalysis discovered that the funds have been delivered in the form of the two major crypto tokens including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). The parties donating funds in Ether contributed up to $28.9 million. The people donating BTC funds offered $22.8 million. Some others also utilized Tether (USDT) stablecoin for providing funds to Ukraine accounting for nearly $11.6 million.
Some other donations were made in non-fungible tokens like the auction conducted by UkraineDAO for the NFT of a Ukrainian flag. The respective NFT was sold for nearly $6.1 million. Almost 80% of the cumulative $70M amount donated was witnessed in the initial months of the conflict. In addition to this, the crypto payments’ speed played a significant role in fast-tracking the ability of the country to react to the invasion.
On the 24th of February, Alex Bornyakov (the deputy digital minister of Ukraine) elaborated this in his interview that was conducted with Yahoo Finance. He stated that if the conventional financial system is utilized it would have taken days for the accomplishment of the payments. On the other hand, crypto payments are rapid and convenient for the authorities to carry out their purposes.
Along with this the minister also disclosed that nearly sixty percent of the firms offering supplies to them have additionally accepted crypto. As per Bornyakov, this was an unexpected thing for him. The minister added that the country’s crypto fund witnessed a huge success.
As per him, the number of donations was enormous and assisted Ukraine a lot. Nonetheless, the other thing providing helping the country is the convenience of accessing the donated funds.
Ukraine DAO’s co-founder “Alona Schevchenko” additionally elaborated that the crypto assets offered a solution to the restrictions implemented on the central banking mechanism of Ukraine. The central bank imposed restrictions on the transfers made in foreign currencies within as well as external to the country to prevent the run on Ukraine’s native currency hryvnia.
The co-founder mentioned that the crypto assets let the country fulfill the instant requirements of some of its defenders. In Schevchenkov’s words, there was no other method present at that time to deal with that situation. In August 2022, Mykhailo Fedorov (Ukrainian minister of digital transformation and vice prime minister) shared a tweet.
Ukraine Becomes Top 3rd Country in Terms of Crypto Adoption
He noted in the tweet that the majority of crypto payments that the digital ministry received have been utilized for the funding of medicine, vehicles, armor clothing, and military equipment in Ukraine. The mounted dependence on crypto assets in Ukraine spears to have elevated their adoption within the country.
As a result of this, Ukraine has occupied the 3rd place coming only after first Vietnam and the 2nd Philippines in terms of crypto adoption. In the meantime, recently Chainalysis issued a crime report, pointing out that a cumulative $456.8M amount was paid by Ukrainians in ransomware attacks in 2022. It is believed that most of the people responsible for conducting such attacks were from Russia.