On February 24, the life of the Ukrainian people fundamentally and irreversibly changed. Instead of planning vacations, people started setting up basements to spend the night during a drone attacks. Instead of buying new iPhones, people transfer money to the Ukrainian army and charity funds. At first, they donated in national currency — the hryvnia, then the hryvnia ran out, and people started donating in euros and dollars. The currency ran out, and Ukrainians, citizens of a country with legalized cryptocurrency and the 3rd largest in the world in terms of its use, began to donate USDT, ether and bitcoins (mainly). According to Crystal Blockchain analysts, today are 44 organizations in Ukraine that accept donations in cryptocurrency. Thus, as of the beginning of May (2 months after the start of the war), Ukrainians donated more than $125 million, and as of September — more than $179 million.
The most famous crypto funds and organizations received:
- Aid For Ukraine — more than $60 million (funds donated by Ukrainians to this fund are usually used for cyber defence, informational counter-propaganda, and IT assistance to the AFU);
- Come back alive — more than $28 million (mostly drones are bought with these donations);
- The Serhiy Prytula Foundation — $3.2 million. These funds are used to purchase equipment: cars, satellites, drones, radio stations, etc.). This fund has 3 wallets — USDT, ERC and Bitcoin;
- KOLO — $540,000.
The Aid For Ukraine crypto fund was launched by the joint efforts of the Ministry of digital transformation, blockchain company Everstake, crypto exchange FTX and Ukrainian crypto platform KUNA. As of March 15, the crypto fund received 601 BTC (approximately $12 million) from Ukrainians, as well as:
- 10 193 ETH;
- 11 372 324 USDT;
- 435 645 DOT.
Prytula Fund (excluding funds from the sale of NTF):
- BTC 3.84280403;
- ETH 43.54692189;
- USDT 332,392.24;
- $1.3 million from a Ukrainian businessman who asked not to be named.
"If we had made payments according to the standard peacetime procedure and waited for bank approvals, we would not have been able to buy everything so quickly. In part, we pay directly with crypto for walkie-talkies, drones, thermal imagers in Europe, for example, we paid for drones in Estonia or for cars in Britain and Slovakia. Some suppliers in Europe only charge crypto for cars," Serhiy Prytula.
Donations to NTFs are mostly made in Ethereum (since NFTs are usually created in this blockchain). Below is a partial list of projects that have been invested in Aid For Ukraine:
- MetaHistory — 300 ETH;
- Russia For Sale — 8.18025 ETH ($14 363);
- Holy Water — 20.96 ETH ($36 872);
- Noosphere — 0.50 ETH;
- SOUL OF UKRAINE — 0.64 ETH;
- Doge in Ukraine — 0.25 ETH;
- POPCORN FOR UKRAINE — 7.5 ETH.
What were the most considerable proceeds from the sale of NFTs to the Prytula fund:
- $500.000 for selling Maria Prymachenko's painting Flowers grew around the 4th block. The buyer wished not to be named, but he is a businessman from Lviv who has been living abroad for over 10 years. With this money, the fund purchased 125 Volkswagen T5 minibuses for the Armed Forces of Ukraine;
- Sale of the crystal cup of the winner of Eurovision-2022 — Kalush Orchestra — $900.000;
- Sale of Serhiy Prytula's painting Father and Mother — $25.000.
With these funds, the fund purchased Ukrainian-made PD-2 drones.
Cryptocurrency transactions are anonymous, so crypto brokers usually remain unnamed. But some individuals publicly support Ukraine and voice their donations to attract other benefactors to support it. Below is a list:
- Justin Sun, Tron — $200.000;
- Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX — $250.000;
- DigitalBits - $300.000;
- ICON — $1 million;
- Hedera — $1 million;
- Hedera Hashgraph - $1 million;
- EXMO — $1 million;
- Solana Community — $1 million;
- Solana — $1 million;
- Vitalii Buterin, Ethereum — $4.7 million;
- Gavin Wood, Polkadot — $5.8 million;
- Kraken — $10 million;
- Everstake — $10 million;
- Binance — $11 million.
"But we should not forget that the main backers of Ukraine in the crypt are the Ukrainians themselves. We don't know their names, but we thank everyone for every satoshi," Serhiy Prytula.
