Cryptocurrency and war, Ukraine crypto fundraising farce

Michael Chobanian, founder of Kuna, Ukraine's largest cryptocurrency exchange, recently spoke to the Wall Street Journal in New York about the relationship between the entire war and cryptocurrency.

Michael Chobanian said in the interview that because he owns Kuna, the leading cryptocurrency exchange in Ukraine, he was contacted by the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation and was assigned the task of fundraising for the cryptocurrency war.

Paul Vigna, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, who covered the entire cryptocurrency-Russia-Ukraine war, said he was surprised that Ukraine was able to raise more than $30 million through cryptocurrency in a short period of time: "Ukraine raised more than $30 million through cryptocurrency in a few days, which is very surprising. They just posted a tweet from their verified account, 'We are raising funds. Here is a Bitcoin address and an Ethereum address. Please help us and donate to us.'"

Paul also mentioned in the interview that Ukraine has subsequently added a variety of other cryptocurrency donation channels, such as Dogecoin, Tether, Solana and Tron. Interestingly, he called Polkadot a "less well-known currency" in the interview.

When Polkadot founder Gavin Wood was seeking donations in Ukraine, he tweeted that he would donate $5 million as long as the Ukrainian government established a Polkadot wallet address. Subsequently, Ukraine quickly created the relevant address, and Gavin Wood quickly deposited the donation into the wallet address provided by the official.

The Wall Street Journal interview did not mention that Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation had promised to give airdrops to donors in return as a state.

Bitpush previously reported that after Ukraine announced the airdrop, the country received more than $7 million in cryptocurrency donations. This included $1.1 million worth of Ethereum, $6 million in DOT, and other cryptocurrencies. This will bring the country's total cryptocurrency donations to more than $40 million.

But in the end, the Ukrainian government did not fulfill its promise. On March 3, the day after the airdrop was announced, Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, tweeted again that the official decision to cancel the airdrop and all donations would be used as war expenses. NFTs will be issued later to support the Ukrainian armed forces.

Ukraine is the first country to seek donations from the crypto community as a state, and it is also the first country to break its promises to the crypto community as a state. Many netizens condemned the Ukrainian officials' "falling out" behavior.

In addition, there has been a lot of discussion online about the issue of donations going to the military. The Ukrainian government has not said that the previous donations will be used for military expenditures. At the same time, there have been a lot of objections on social media, with many donors saying that their original intention was to distribute the donations to the victims to alleviate the humanitarian crisis.

The Wall Street Journal interview also mentioned that Ukraine ultimately raised billions of dollars from governments around the world and raised $270 million in war bonds, of which $63 million came from cryptocurrency donations.

The interview also mentioned the situation of cryptocurrencies in Russia. Reporter Paul Vigna said that although there are a lot of regulatory sanctions in Russia, it cannot completely prevent people from using cryptocurrencies to circumvent regulations.

But this does not mean that Russian oligarchs can transfer wealth through cryptocurrencies, because a large number of existing crypto exchanges are following US sanctions regulations, and there are nearly 9,000 names on the US sanctions list. As long as someone is on the sanctions list, no US company can have any relationship with him. This includes cryptocurrency exchanges.

Despite this, Paul Vigna still believes that cryptocurrencies will play a vital role in future global conflicts due to the increasing importance of financing to war.