An NFT project raised $1 million for Ukrainians in 30 seconds. Ukrainian officials are directly soliciting cryptocurrency donations. The tally of cryptocurrency donations sent to Ukraine’s government and NGOs since the start of its armed conflict with Russia is nearing $10 million, including $1.86 million from one NFT collection.
The crypto war chest includes a single donation of $1.86 million that “appears to have originated,” from the NFT collection “Censored” created by digital artist Pak and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Russian punk band/activists Pussy Riot have teamed with several cryptocurrency groups to mint an NFT that will be sold this weekend to raise funds for Ukrainian civilian groups.
Among the artists featured in the project are Danny Cole (Creatures), Clon (Cool Cats), SuperGremplin (Cryptoadz), Sartoshi (mfers), Smiless, Vinnie Hager and the team behind recently minted Starcatchers.
The project will offer 200 editions of each piece with a cost of 0.05 Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH). The mint will be blind with a max of two transactions. The mint date and time have not been announced.
UkraineDAO will launch Saturday at noon EST with the release of a 1/1 NFT of the Ukrainian flag, the sale of which will benefit Ukraine’s Come Back Alive, “one of the most effective and transparent Ukrainian charitable and volunteer initiatives.”
“Our goal is to use what we’re good at, web3, to assist Ukrainians as they cope with the Russian invasion of their country,” Pussy Riot tweeted of UkraineDAO. “We’ll be buying an NFT of the Ukrainian flag.”
In the midst of the Russian invasion, crypto has emerged as an important resource for Ukrainians as other payment forms become unreliable. Following Russia’s invasion of the country on Thursday, Ukraine’s central bank shut down electronic money payments which likely encompasses fiat currency held in digital accounts like Venmo.
“If we could, we would jump under a tank to stop it,” Tolokonnikova said of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “For multiple reasons we can’t do it right now, so we’re helping with crypto.”
“Coming from Ukraine, it’s totally normal to have stacks of dollars in physical proximity,” says Illia Polosukhin, a Ukrainian cofounder of NEAR Protocol, a competitor to Ethereum. He has family in Kharkiv, which was being bombarded as we spoke. “You don’t trust the local currency and on top of that, you don’t trust banks.” That makes Ukraine a natural place for cryptocurrency adoption.
