Thousands of anonymous donors are delivering aid to Ukraine using Bitcoinsthe most popular cryptocurrency. More than 12 million euros have already been donated to help the country cope with the invasion by Russia.
Bitcoin payments allow anonymity between recipient and donor
The information comes from a report made by Elliptic, a company specialized in analyzing transactions with Blockchain technology. The donations would target both the Ukrainian government and non-governmental organizations and volunteer groups. In particular, the Ukrainian government published last Saturday an announcement where it announced that was accepting donations in cryptocurrencies, both Bitcoin as well as Ethereum and USDT.
The Ukrainian Digital Ministry has reported that the amount of donations received will be used to help the armed forces, although it did not provide further details on how the money received will be used.
All recipients (ministries, NGOs and volunteers) also have disseminated online the public addresses of their e-walletsso that anyone can make a donation anonymously. In the same way, the identity of the recipient is also protected, which provides security to both parties, as well as to the transaction itself.
So far, there have been more than 4,000 donations, with an average of 85 euros each, although it is worth noting that one of them has had an amount of 2.7 million euros. Meanwhile, some crowdfunding and remittance platforms have cancelled the possibility of sending payments or income to groups offering help or support to the Ukrainian army, so cryptocurrencies have emerged as an alternative.
Among these examples is Patreon’s suspension of the donation campaign “Return Alive”, a Ukrainian NGO active since 2014 and whose work is to offer support to Ukrainian forces operating in conflict zones. The reason given by Patreon is that such activity is in breach of the platform’s regulations, which prohibits the financing of military activities or the provision of funds for the purpose of armament expenditures.
