According to data collected by Cointelegraph, the amount of tracked crypto donations sent to the Ukrainian government, military and charities has exceeded $37 million at press time. These currencies include Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Tether (USDT), and other digital currencies. The numbers are also based on the projects being tracked and do not take into account items such as donations between individuals.
The largest cryptocurrency recipient appears to be the Reserve Fund of Ukraine, backed by local crypto exchange Kuna. According to the official Telegram channel, the exchange has raised about $13 million in cryptocurrency for Ukraine, primarily through BTC, ETH and USDT.
After that, Come Back Alive, a non-governmental organization that claims to help the Ukrainian armed forces in the resistance, received more than $7.2 million in BTC donations to its wallet address. This includes previous donations, albeit smaller ones, he received during the war in Donbass that began in 2014. Cointelegraph spoke to Ukrainian crypto enthusiasts about a charitable foundation that swears its legitimacy.
Then there is UkraineDAO, led by Pussy Riots (a Russian feminist protest music group) Nadezhda Tolkonikova, and is seeking to sell a single non-fungible token, or NFT, to fund Ukrainian civil society organizations. Currently, the highest bid for NFT is $2.89 million.
In addition, blockchain community activists have created the Unchain Fund to help Ukraine. This initiative supports various altcoins including NEAR, Binance Coin (BNB), Binance USD (BUSD) and more. Since its launch, the fund has raised more than $1.5 million in cryptocurrency, mostly through donations of NEAR tokens. Anna Tutova, a member of the Unchain Fund and a prominent socialite in the crypto community, told Cointelegraph:
We raise money for medicine, evacuation and repair needs, food and clothing. We only collect funds in cryptocurrencies and use multisig wallets to be completely transparent. Harmony, Polygon, Gnosis, Gitcoin and many more.”
Other notable efforts include Braiins, the world’s oldest mining pool, which donated 10 BTC plus a portion of the hash to help Ukraine. The Web3 RELI3F Humanitarian Aid Initiative has also sent 185 ETH to three Ukraine-supporting crypto funds.
But crypto enthusiasts are also asking the Ukrainian government to expand accepting crypto donations to other currencies, not just BTC, ETH and USDT. On Monday, Sunny Lu, co-founder and CEO of Vechain, tweeted:
Around the same time, Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Polkadot (DOT) and Kusama wrote:
While efforts to raise the level of encryption for Ukraine have gained in popularity, users have taken to social media to warn each other to be vigilant, always check the authenticity of donation links, and beware of scams. In one example, the alleged scammer commented on all posts, claiming to be releasing an official crypto address to help the Ukrainian government.
