Although two completely different tragedies, the war in Ukraine, and the recent catastrophic earthquake in Turkey and Syria killing nearly 60k people, do have one important thing in common, and that is crypto-donations. Crypto-community has lent a helping hand to fight the war, and paradoxically also the tragic consequences of it, in the aftermath of one of the most destructive natural disasters in the region in decades.
The way
War conflicts and natural disasters make it difficult for individuals to access traditional banking services to obtain funding for most important and essential needs — from medical supplies and food to clothing, rescue equipment, etc. and the borderless nature of cryptocurrencies makes sending funds during emergencies proven fast, effective, and trustworthy.
David Vs Goliath
The beginning of 2022 was marked by the unbelievable. Aside from the war in former Yugoslavia, the European continent had kept the peace since 1945, now suddenly realizing its plunge into a major conflict on its soil, when on Feb 24th Russia lying to the whole world invaded the neighbouring country of Ukraine. A conflict, which did not play out well for invaders expecting little or no resistance, grew into a full-out war within days, was and still is fought on the front over 1000km long, with tens of thousands of casualties on both sides, and terrible material losses. The initial attempt of Russia to sweep throughout the country failed, while Ukraine surprisingly organized heroic and successful defence and later even a counteroffensive continually bleeding the Russian equipment, resources as well as personnel, successfully regaining parts of the initially lost territories, formerly seized by Russia. The growing number of losses on both sides is staggering, but on top of that, the Ukrainian side suffers thousands of civil casualties including children, women and the elderly. All of this combined with the extreme devastation of the country´s infrastructure, villages and towns obliterated to nothing less than rubble took Ukrainians into the state of survival. The war refugees flooded neighbouring countries, which, despite the chaos in the early days, were able to provide and organize their transports, accommodation, as well as medical care etc, and continue to do so.
United we stand, divided we fall
This event, no matter how shocking it was for comforted citizens of the EU and the rest of the world, prompted the whole continent and the U.S. to a decisive and punitive reaction, in an attempt to deny Russia´s imperial ambitions, imposing harsh sanctions on the country to cripple its war efforts economically. And it did not end up there — the illegal acts of the Russian Federation making the people of Ukraine suffer, lose their homes, and move or leave the country, resorted in EU states organizing vast humanitarian relief together with military support, by sending all kinds of supplies and weapons and other military equipment to support the fighting country.
Crypto Raising
This conflict for the first time introduced cryptocurrencies helping to fund it on both sides. In the case of Ukraine, its unprecedented role helped to raise millions of dollars to fund the country´s fight against invading forces. In the beginning, Ukrainian officials revealed two addresses of the crypto wallets on their Twitter account, prompting potential donors to help with contributions. The wallets collected more than $10,2 million within four days after the start of the invasion. The real inflow of crypto donations began with “Crypto Fund for Ukraine” run by Michael Chobanian, founder of Ukrainian crypto exchange Kuna, which collected more than 60% of all donations — which, until now summed up more than $100 million worth of crypto. The majority of them were BitCoin, Ethereum and Tether (stablecoin) pegged to 1 USD. The funds are spent on various things — from drones to daily rations, helmets and bulletproof vests and other equipment, but also medical stuff etc. In the beginning, there were two funds, both meant to finance humanitarian aid, but after the full escalation, those were merged into one fund, with the focus shifted towards the needs of the military, fully engaged in the defence of the home country.
