Russians Defy Putin, Pour Crypto Donations Into Ukraine: How Much Funding Has The War-Torn Country Received?

Russians who are outraged by President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine are sending "significant amounts of money" through cryptocurrency back channels to support Ukraine, according to Ukraine's deputy digital minister, Alex Bornyakov.

The war-torn country has received over 100,000 donations via cryptocurrency channels, ranging from $1 to millions of dollars.

"Crypto, in certain cases, offers an anonymous way to transfer money. We saw that some Russians were donating to us a significant sum," Bornyakov said, in an interview with Yahoo Finance.

Also Read: Revealed: The Most Googled Questions On Cryptos And Their Answers

Ukraine has been able to identify that the majority of the crypto donations received have been in Bitcoin BTC/USD and Ether ETH/USD, although U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins such as USD Coin USDC/USD and Tether USDT/USD has also contributed a significant proportion.

To date, Ukraine has received around 650 bitcoins, more than 10,000 Ethereum, almost 1.8 million in Polkadot DOT/USD, and $2.8 million in the form of the USDC stablecoin.

According to Crystal Blockchain Analytics, as of November 2022, over $184 million in crypto assets have been raised in support of Ukraine.

The funds raised include a single transaction of $1.86 million from the sale of NFTs created by Julian Assange and digital artist Pak, as well as a CryptoPunk NFT worth approximately $200,000 that was sent to the Ukraine government's Ethereum account.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, Ukraine's cryptocurrency exchange, Kuna, has emerged as the largest crypto-fundraising platform in the country, and the Ukrainian government uses it to cash out the crypto sent from around the world.

Several other organizations, such as the Ukrainian NGO 'Come Back Alive,' have also received several million dollars in crypto donations.

The transparency of blockchain technology allows Ukraine to track the origin of donations and ensure that the funds are used for their intended purpose.

Meanwhile, Gitcoin GTC/USD recently announced the launch of Gitcoin Grants Stack, which enables any community to create, manage and grow a community-driven grants program.

The Gitcoin Grant Stack provides a suite of tools created to unleash the potential of digitally-driven local communities by facilitating collaboration and investment in their own advancement.

“We are taking what we’ve learned from our experience running multiple Gitcoin Grants Rounds to build a self-serve solution that any community can use to allocate their resources and grow their ecosystem using their community’s collective intelligence,” said Nate Gosselin, Product Lead on Allo Protocol, one of two new protocols powering Gitcoin Grants Stack.

Next: Illicit Crypto Transaction Volume Hits All-Time High In 2022: Which Crimes Are Rising?

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