Who Spends Ukraine's Bitcoin Donations — And What Are They Being Used For?

Ukraine has seen a massive inflow of cryptocurrency donations from people around the world to support the country’s fight against an invasion by Russia. Here’s a look at who is in charge of the donations and how they could be spent.

What Happened: The Defense Ministry of Ukraine is deciding how donated cryptocurrency funds are to be used. CoinDesk spoke with Michael Chobanian, the founder of Ukrainian exchange Kuna, a leader of the crypto effort for the country.

“14 million USD of the 16.8 million USD has already been spent,” Chobanian said.

The country is not revealing the specifics of what items were purchased “due to a level of secrecy involved.” The blockchain is providing transparency on the movement of the cryptocurrency donations, showing the government is receiving and spending the donations.

The man calling the shots is most likely Defense Minster Oleksii Reznikov, CoinDesk reports.

Kuna helped set up the digital wallets for the government.

Related Link: How The Crytpocurreny And NFT Communities Are Rallying Financial Support For Ukraine And Its Artist

Why It’s Important: Donations of Bitcoin BTC/USD, Ethereum ETH/USD and other cryptocurrencies have poured in to Ukraine. 

The government is spending the donations on what it considers to be critical supplies. This includes gas, food and military equipment, according to CoinDesk.

“We are evacuating people so we are sending money to buy petrol, to buy food and water for the people who are evacuating. We are sending some money to the local military personnel who can buy some supplies locally,” Chobanian said.

Other supplies purchased include drones and heat vision goggles for the military.

Chobanian said Ukraine is able to buy all of the items in Europe using crypto. Several vendors have stepped up to accept crypto as a payment option for supplies.

A total of three wallets have been tracked by CoinDesk to show where money is going and how quickly it is spent. Bitcoin donations have been transacted the fastest, according to the report.

A wallet associated with the Ukrainian nonprofit “Come Back Alive” tracked by CoinDesk has $7 million in Bitcoin that had not been moved as of Monday.