Key Takeaways:
- Ukraine spent $11.8 million of crypto donations on unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).
- Ukraine has received over $60M in crypto donations.
LAGOS (CoinChapter.com) — Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister of digital transformation, has expressed gratitude to the crypto community for the assistance and donations given to the country in its ongoing conflict with Russia.
Fedorov announced this through his official Twitter account, disclosing how the country spent $54 million received in crypto donations. He also noted that the funds were raised through the Aid-For-Ukraine initiative founded by blockchain companies Everstake and Kuna.
“With $54M raised by @_AidForUkraine, we’ve supplied our defenders with military equipment, armor clothes, medicines and even vehicles. Thanks to the crypto community for support since the start of the full-scale invasion! Donation by donation to the big victory.”
Mykhailo Fedorov said.
According to Fedorov, uncrewed aerial vehicles (drones) were the most expensive equipment bought with crypto donations, costing $11.8 million. Additionally, the country spent $6.9 million on armored vests and $5.7 million on computer hardware and software.
Furthermore, the country spent over $5 million on weapons of the Ministry of Defense request and another $5 million on anti-war media campaigns. It is also worth noting that crypto exchange FTX has supported Ukraine’s humanitarian efforts and Armed Forces.
Since the war began, Ukraine has received over $60 million in crypto donations, according to the organization.
Cryptocurrency Roles In The Russian-Ukraine war
Meanwhile, after President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, the crypto community joined most of the world in condemning Ukraine’s action. While several cryptocurrency exchanges joined western countries to impose sanctions on Russia and its citizens’ others took a more direct approach.
Notably, several blockchain platforms donated millions in digital assets to Ukraine, and prominent individuals in the industry also joined. For example, polkadot co-founder, Gavin Wood, donated $5 million to Ukraine and $200,000 CryptoPunk. Elliptic also revealed that Wood donated $1.26 million from selling an NFT by Julian Assange and digital artist Pak.
Similarly, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin donated $2.5 million Ethereum to the country to battle Russia’s onslaught. He facilitated the purchase of 31,000 medical kits, 364,000 medical supplies, and 585 radio kits, among others.
Several non-fungible tokens were also launched to help raise funds for the war efforts. Legendary boxer Wladimir Klitschko unveiled an NFT collection, “Vandals for Ukraine,” to raise funds. Also, over 500 Ukrainian artists submitted art to a new NFT collection sold via Holy Water to raise money for Ukrainians.
Moreover, Time magazine launched the Web3 NFT community initiative dubbed TIMEpieces to raise money for Ukrainians. The collection is titled Make Art Not War, and according to Time, collectors have minted over 10,000 NFTs from 99 collages of images already.
