With Russia threatening retaliation against anyone who helps Ukraine, anonymous donations using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are being made to the Ukranian government, volunteer groups, and non-governmental organizations (NGO).
As the BBC reports, a massive influx of donations has been made possible through the different groups working within Ukraine advertising their Bitcoin wallet addresses online. The official Twitter account of the Ukraine government has a pinned tweet advertising its Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets along with the message, “Stand with the people of Ukraine. Now accepting cryptocurrency donations. Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT.”
Although many donations are quite small as individuals give what they can afford, the top donor so far sent $3 million of Bitcoin to an NGO and the total donations have surpassed $20.9 million just a few days into the conflict. That’s according to researchers at blockchain analysis company Elliptic, and it’s a figure that’s surely set to keep rising.
In total, there have been more than 4,000 donations split between Bitcoin (56.4%), Ether (31.8%), Stablecoins (10.9%), and “other” (0.9%). Some people are sending Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) to the government’s Ethereum account, and the Ukranian NGO Come Back Alive, which is focused on helping soldiers, has received “several million dollars” in crypto. The Patreon account for Come Back Alive was suspended last week after Patreon decided it “violated our policies” due to how the money raised would be used.
