Ukraine’s Deputy Minister for Digital Transformation, Alex Bornyakov, revealed in a Tuesday tweet that the flexibility of cryptocurrencies is helping to save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers in the country’s ongoing war with Russia.
Despite the “bear market” crypto has become an essential tool of Ukraine’s defence, providing flexibility and speed that literally saved our soldiers’ lives. Every “crypto winter” leads to a “crypto spring”, but the industry is here to stay. https://t.co/Zhu93vso5T
— Alex Bornyakov (@abornyakov) July 26, 2022
Crypto to the Rescue
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, it became difficult to get money in and out of Ukraine. Payment methods such as wire transfers became slow, taking days to reach the country, thereby limiting the government’s access to fast funds to support its military.
As a result, government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), volunteer groups, and citizens in the country turned to crypto for quick access to funds, due to the asset class being flexible and faster than other methods.
To get these funds, the Ukrainian government provided wallet addresses accepting bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and tether (USDT) via its Twitter handle, a few days into the war.
Since then, Ukraine has been receiving crypto donations from governments, organizations, crypto firms, and billionaires all over the world.
Ukraine Receives Over $100M in Crypto Donations
According to reports, Ukraine has now raised more than $125 million in cryptocurrency donations to support its military. However, the donations have lost value following the recent market crash which saw the market cap of the entire crypto assets fall below $1 trillion from their November 2021 peak of $3 trillion.
Despite the crash, Ukraine’s crypto fundraisers are not discouraged and have continued to raise funds for the country.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has also raised over $1.2 million from the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the government is also calling on artists to create more NFTs for sale, that will help fund military equipment, and rebuild infrastructures.
