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by tinalumfoil 1477 days ago
> Two days after the invasion began, the Ukrainian government posted addresses to its bitcoin, ethereum and tether wallets on social media. The Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine now accepts donations in 14 cryptocurrencies. “Crypto really helped during the first few days because we were able to cover some immediate needs,” says Alex Bornyakov, one of Ukraine’s deputy ministers for digital transformation. The government has raised the equivalent of $100m so far. Non-government organisations are raising funds too. Come Back Alive, a Ukrainian NGO that since 2014 has collected money for military equipment and training, relies on crypto after it was kicked off Patreon, a fund-raising platform that accepts donations in fiat currency but does not allow them to be spent on military apparatus. UkraineDAO, a crypto collective, auctioned a non-fungible token (NFT) of a Ukrainian flag for $6.5m-worth of Ethereum. It is the tenth most expensive NFT ever sold according to Elliptic, an analytics firm. The proceeds will be spent on humanitarian aid.

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/04/05/...
1 comments
iancmceachern 1477 days ago
Thank you for posting this. I've been searching for an example of a net positive use of crypto, this is it.

Thank you

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munk-a 1477 days ago
If you'd prefer to donate using conventional currencies that is still quite available. I'm not sure if it really counts as a big positive when governments just incur additional overhead trying to process strange currencies instead of letting banks handle the exchange and just ending up with useful and liquid local currency.

And countries at war often use auctions of memorabilia or other objects to raise funds - selling an NFT is just a shift in medium.

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itsoktocry 1477 days ago
>I've been searching for an example of a net positive use of crypto, this is it.

A corrupt[0] government collecting money through opaque organizations to use for military purposes and "humanitarian aid" is the best we've got?

[0] https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/corruption-index

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iancmceachern 1477 days ago
Yeah, crypto isn't awesome in my view, but I've been trying to play devils advocate for myself to challenge my opinion. Thus far no dice until this. It's not much, but it atleast helps me confirm my view that crypto isn't living up to it's value prop.
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