The government of Ukraine has now received over $10 million in crypto donations to fund its ongoing war against Russia.
Ukraine Government Raises $10M in Crypto
After announcing via its Twitter handle on Saturday that it has started accepting cryptocurrency donations to support its military in the ongoing war against Russia, the Ukrainian government has now raised over $10 million worth of cryptocurrencies so far.
In the tweet, the government provided two separate wallet addresses, one accepting only bitcoin (BTC), and the other accepting ethereum (ETH) and tether (USDT).
“Stand with the people of Ukraine. Now accepting cryptocurrency donations. Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT.
BTC – 357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P
ETH and USDT (ERC-20) – 0x165CD37b4C644C2921454429E7F9358d18A45e14,” the government tweeted.
At the time of writing, the BTC wallet balance currently stands at $4.3 million, while the ETH and USDT are at $5.5 million.
The funding saw participation from the founder of TRON Foundation, Justin Sun, who donated about $200,000 in Tron directly to the government.
Crypto platforms including Binance, FTX exchange, and others also contributed to the non-governmental organization (NGOs) and volunteer groups.
The move suggests that the Ukrainian government has now changed its mind on accepting crypto for donations after it previously said it could not do so due to legal reasons.
Elliptic, a blockchain analytics startup, recently revealed that since the beginning of Russia’s invasion, the Ukrainian government, NGOs, and volunteer groups have now raised over $20 million across more than 22,000 transactions.
Crowdfunding Via Crypto
Crypto continues to show the potential that it can be used as a funding method thereby bypassing sanctions from financial institutions.
Not just Ukraine NGOs and volunteer groups, others have also embraced the asset class in the past as a source of funding.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) started accepting crypto donations back in 2019.
In another development, U.S. breast cancer organization Susan G. Komen recently partnered with The Giving Block to accept cryptocurrency donations.
Meanwhile, European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde recently called on the European Union (EU) to speed up crypto regulations to stop Russia from dodging sanctions.
