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Bitcoin donations to Ukrainian military soar as Russia invades

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Ukrainian servicemen are seated on armored personnel carrier vehicles while driving along the Donetsk Region, Eastern Ukraine, Thursday February 24, 2022.

Vadim Ghirda | AP

Bitcoin donations to Ukraine’s army have shot up after Moscow launched a large-scale offensiveOn Thursday night, several Ukrainian cities were attacked including Kyiv.

According to new data from Elliptic blockchain analytics firm, almost $400,000 was donated by Come Back Alive to Come Back Alive in a 24-hour period on Thursday. Come Back Alive is a Ukrainian nongovernmental organisation that provides support for the armed forces.

The fresh round of crypto donations capitalizes on a trend seen in recent weeks, in which donations totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars have flooded into Ukrainian NGOs and volunteer groups working to stave off a Russian offensive, according to Elliptic, which sells blockchain analytics tools to banks and some of the world’s largest cryptocurrency platforms, including Binance and Circle.

Activists have deployed the crypto for a variety of purposes, including equipping the Ukrainian army with military equipment, medical supplies, and drones, as well as funding the development of a facial recognition app that identifies if someone is a Russian mercenary or spy.

Elliptic’s Chief Scientist Tom Robinson said that cryptocurrency was being increasingly used for crowdfunding war, and with the tacit consent of governments.

You are borderless, and you can censorship-proof

Voluntary groups have been helping Ukraine’s military to increase its effectiveness by providing additional human resources. Volunteers stepped in to help protesters after Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian President, was removed from power in 2014.

These funds are typically received from private donors via bank wires, payment apps or banking app. But cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, have gained popularity because they enable them to bypass banks that may block payments to Ukraine.

According to Elliptic data, more than $1 million has been raised by NGOs and volunteer groups in crypto. However, that figure is likely to rise as donors continue to pour in during Russia’s new offensive.

An army column is seen approaching the Perekop border checkpoint. In response to the appeals of leaders from Donetsk People’s Republics and Lugansk People’s Republics, President Putin declared a military operation by Russia’s Armed Forces to conduct a special military operation.

Tass – Getty Images| Tass | Getty Images

Since 2018, Come Back Alive has been accepting cryptocurrency to provide military personnel with medical supplies, equipment and training services.

The Ukrainian Cyber Alliance has also received bitcoins in excess of $100,000. litecoinether and a mix of stablecoins over the last year. Elliptic claims that Alliance activists engaged in cyberattacks against Russian targets since 2016.

The other is the pro-Russian side. Since the early stages of the conflict, they have used bitcoin to raise funds.

Boaz Sobrado, a London-based analyst in fintech data tells CNBC some Russian officials said they were not closing down opposition bank accounts out of “fear that they would push them into cryptocurrency fundraising which is much harder to track.”

Sobrado continued by saying that crypto-fundraising has been a tradition for some time, even though it is not always in the best interest of controversial causes. from WikiLeaks to Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who has also been raising funds in bitcoin.

Ukraine is also taking steps to adopt cryptocurrencies at the national level.

Ukrainian Recently, President Volodymyr Zeleskyy and parliament reached a common ground a law that legalizes and regulates cryptocurrency. The measure goesIt is still a long way to lifting cryptocurrency out of its current legal gray zone, but it’s not as far as El Salvador that adopted it as legal tender in September.

In August 2021 on an official State Visit to the U.S. Zelenskyy spoke of Ukraine’s budding “legal innovative market for virtual assets” as a selling point for investment, and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said the country was modernizing its payment market so that its national bank would be able to issue digital currency.

All those plans could be canceled if Russia invades.

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