The world platform is watching Ukraine and Russia to find out.
Does crypto help or hinder conflict? The invasion was swiftly condemned by most of the Western world which also moved to sanction major Russian banks, oligarchs and businesses. Sanctions extended to Russian financial institutions’ use of the SWIFT interbank settlement system, hindering their ability to operate effectively within the global financial system. The Ukrainian government, citizens, and even newspapers have called to crypto for aid. Russian citizens are looking for ways to safeguard what they have, while Russia is being sanctioned by the Western world. Let’s take a look at some ways crypto aided/and hindered during conflict:
- Ukraine has received over $52 million in crypto funds between Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot and NFTs
- Russian Ruble lost 30% of its value against the dollar in one day
- As blockchain analytics firm Elliptic explains, “Cryptoassets such as Bitcoin have emerged as an important alternative crowdfunding method. They allow quick, cross-border donations.”
- As of March 2nd, Ukraine is officially accepting Dogecoin donations
- A premium for Bitcoin in Russia is due to the economic sanctions from the Western world, therefore creating an influx of Bitcoin addresses that hold between 1000 and 100 BTC.
- Uniswap added a tool on Tuesday that allows users to swap any crypto for ETH and send it to the Ukrainian government’s wallet in a single transaction.
- SAND TO BLOCK RUSSIA – The move comes as Ukraine’s vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, urged cryptocurrency exchanges in a tweet Sunday morning to block addresses belonging to Russian users.
- Other crypto platforms outside of SAND (Animoca Brands; the Sandbox) have been weighing up a decision to follow through on the minister’s request, to block addresses belonging to Russian users, though most have reportedly decided not to pursue such measures.
- In addition to raising Bitcoin and Ethereum, the official Twitter account of the Ukrainian government shared their wallet address for USD-pegged Stablecoin Tether (USDT).
- The hacker group Anonymous offered Russian soldiers surrendering to Ukraine 5 million rubles worth of crypto or cash (roughly $45,000 USD).
- The UkraineDAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) released a one-time NFT of the Ukrainian flag that turned out to be the 10th most expensive NFT ever sold – $6.5 million!
- The DAO has officially joined the Ukrainian government itself in requesting cryptocurrency donations to aid the effort in pushing back against Russia’s advances.
- Despite the enormous surge of crypto donations and support, the vast majority of funding is still expected to be supplied in the form of traditional fiat currency.
Global conflict is bringing real world global change. From borderless money systems, to DAO’s to a brave new world. The world of blockchain technologies includes many difficult decisions facing the people and their governments. What role should governments take in a world of blockchain and decentralized finance, or should they take any role at all. Companies such as Animoca Brands choose to cooperate with government sanctions and blocking Russian addresses, does that lend itself to a more centralized world of blockchain. Or did they company choose to cooperate due to the fear of being the victim of those same government sanctions. A quote directly from the company, “The legal advice we’ve been receiving is we now have to impose some restrictions,” said Animoca co-founder Yat Siu. “It’s a sanctioned country on par with North Korea. The moment we end up doing business in those areas, we might ourselves become financially excluded from the financial system.”
Conflict and crypto, it is in the hands of the people. Bottom line, cryptocurrency is a name that will be in our everyday vocabulary and will be a part of the tech world as we know it!
At the time of this article the writers were actively using Coinbase, FTX, Metamask, Trust Wallet, Crypto.com, Binance, Robinhood, Webull, KuCoin, Voyager and Hotbit. They also own currencies: BTC, ETH, USDC, SOL, AVAX, ALGO, MATIC, CRO, ENS, DOT, XLM, MANA, RARI, ENJ, XRP, FIL, SAND, HNT.
