NFTs include that of the Ukrainian flag. Photo: Jorono, Pixabay.
Cryptocurrency donations to the Ukrainian government and the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Come Back Alive, which passes the amounts on to the country’s military, have so far totaled the equivalent of US$56.2 million. In the midst of this movement, the NFTs, (non-fungible tokens are showing how they can help at a time like this, by helping to raise funds for Ukraine.
Donors have handed over more than 106,000 cryptocurrency donations, especially bitcoin and ethereum, since Russia invaded the neighboring nation on Feb. The data is from Elliptic, a blockchain analytics company. But, there were also donations from TRON, Polkadot, Dogecoin and Solana.
The government of Ukraine asked for donations in cryptocurrencies on the 26th. The Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, announced that there will be a campaign to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to raise funds for the Armed Forces. This will replace the airdrop, i.e. mass granting of cryptos, which was scheduled to happen yesterday (3). However, Fedorov said that Ukraine will not issue the NFTs.
After careful consideration we decided to cancel airdrop. Every day there are more and more people willing to help Ukraine to fight back the aggression. Instead, we will announce NFTs to support Ukrainian Armed Forces soon. We DO NOT HAVE any plans to issue any fungible tokens
— Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) March 3, 2022
Flag and CryptoPunk Collection NFTs in Ukraine Wallet
There was already, on Wednesday (2), the auction of an NFT of the flag of Ukraine by UkraineDAO initiative. The initiative is from activist groups in the decentralized finance ecosystem and from NFTs who have accepted banner offerings and donations. It raised US$6.5 million (about R$33.5 million) on 2,173.6379 ether in the auction. It was the tenth largest sale, by value, of an NFT. The money goes to the NGO Come Back Alive. The donator received the $LOVE token, which has no utility or monetary value, but is proof that they did something to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia. It is still possible to donate, but there will be no more distribution of $LOVE.
In addition to the flag’s NFT, which has a strong symbolic value at the moment, NFT CryptoPunk number 5364 went to Ukraine’s wallet on Tuesday (2). The assessment of this NFT is that it could cost around $200,000. Additionally, there was a $1.86 million donation that apparently came from the sale of NFTs to help activist Julian Assange.
Elliptic identifies fraudsters who take advantage of the situation
Come Back Alive initially said it would use the money to buy equipment such as tablets with artillery software, cellphone monitoring systems, military vehicles and sniper training. Therefore, the content platform Patreon, where it was hosted, deleted it. This is because its policy does not allow use of the platform for military purposes. Thus, he stated that “Ukrainian journalists recommended several entities, such as the Ukrainian Red Cross Society, Voices of Children and Revived Soldiers Ukraine.
According to Elliptic, bitcoin and ether account for 64.9% of donations. Stables follow with 17%. The company warned, however, that there are fraudulent schemes that take advantage of the situation to deceive people who want to make donations.
