[zmaurelius]

It also enabled about $60+ million dollars to be donated to Ukraine and that's just one data point. Whether these other problems are a small price to pay will depend on who you are talking to. To the Ukrainians that benefited from these donations and to those that have food, weapons and shelter from these donations, it is most likely a small price to pay.

Perhaps a portion of these donations could have come from other sources if cryptocurrencies did not exist, but there isn't really a good way to quantify that, so I won't go into that discussion.

[camjw]

A quick google shows that the US government has given $16.8bn in aid to Ukraine. It seems like the centralised system is doing significantly better.

[landemva]

Giving my tax dollars to Ukraine without forcing Ukraine to negotiate an end to it is not "doing better".

[EFreethought]

Why should Ukraine be forced to negotiate? Russia invaded Ukraine.

Then again, a crypto bro blaming the victim makes perfect sense.

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

You are paying them to protect you and the entire world from unimaginable evil.

[landemva]

Evil was German Nazis. And the Ukraine Nazis which the USA did not pursue after WW2.

NATO pushing closer to Russia the past 30 years didn't protect anything except the paychecks of the war makers.

[_kbh_]

I see you don't speak of the literal Nazi PMC in Russia (Wanger).

I mean they are so not evil they commit war crimes on camera.

> NATO pushing closer to Russia the past 30 years didn't protect anything except the paychecks of the war makers.

NATO pushed closer to Russia over the past 30 years because of exactly what Russia is doing in Ukraine.

[newt_slowly]

I was able to donate hundreds of dollars to Ukraine using the same credit card I use for everything else. What is special about crypto donations to Ukraine? I suspect that the fees of converting USD->BTC (or other crypto) and then the recipients converting back to UAH are higher than the <2% CC fee I paid. (I used a card with no foreign transaction fee.)

And with credit card, the donation recipient wouldn't be at risk of losing double digit percentages of the value donated if they didn't immediately cash out into fiat currency.

[yunohn]

> It also enabled about $60+ million dollars to be donated to Ukraine and that's just one data point

I love how every crypto enthusiast (incl Vitalik) uses this one-off example to justify everything these days.

[EFreethought]

Maybe they finally realized they looked stupid after a decade of using Venezuela as an example of how crypto can help a country, even though crypto hasn't made anything better there.