Over the last few weeks, Live Bitcoin News has been carefully and closely monitoring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We have reported the high number of bitcoin and crypto donations the country has received, which are now allegedly being used to support Ukraine’s military and give people the supplies they need to fight back.
Ukraine Keeps Getting Digital Money
Not long ago, Ukraine was reported to have earned as much as $12 million in crypto donations. Now, it appears the country has raked in a whopping $34 million according to data from blockchain analysis firm Elliptic. Per the company’s chief scientist Tom Robinson, much of this money stems from bitcoin and Ethereum donations, though some of the money has come through non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which has gone directly to the Ukraine government’s Ethereum account.
The money began arriving after the country issued a plea on Twitter and other forms of social media roughly two weeks ago. As many as 30,000 individual donations have been pledged to the people of Ukraine, and several donations have been over $1 million.
One of the biggest single donations to date comes from Gavin Wood, the man who co-founded Ethereum and the founder of Polkadot. Thus far, he has given more than $5 million worth of DOT – the official Polkadot cryptocurrency – to Ukraine. To date, the country’s official DOT wallet contains more than $6 million in cryptocurrency. Wood had initially claimed he would give this money in a social media post, and it looks like he’s staying true to that promise.
Not long ago, the world watched in horror as Russian forces gathered along the border of Ukraine. Despite the promise of several sanctions and other forms of punishment from the United States and its allies, Russia moved forward in an invasion, marking the first time in several years that Russia sought to enter territory where it didn’t belong.
As awful as the situation is, not everyone agrees that it’s one of pure gloom and doom. Tom Lee of Fundstrat fame, for example, is quite bullish about the idea of Ukraine asking for cryptocurrency donations. In a series of social media posts, he commented that Ukraine was not asking for USD or any other fiat currency. Rather, it was specifically looking to crypto to accomplish its tasks. He said:
[You] still think bitcoin is not useful? A sovereign nation is not asking for USD donations, but rather crypto donations. Wow.
Will Russia Turn to Crypto?
With the number of sanctions now being imposed on Russia, several Russian banks have been removed from the SWIFT international payments program, and many members of the country’s elite have seen their financial ties dissipate. Lee believes this will force Russia’s people to instantly convert to crypto as a means of surviving. He commented:
Surely this will force Russia to seek alternative ways to route and access capital.
