All that’s known about a third top donor, who gave about $280,000, is that their wallet (akin to a public bank account number) earned nearly $3 million in 17 minutes from the failed launch of a cryptocurrency in November 2021, drawing accusations of having been the beneficiary of a “rug pull” scam. Neither the identity of whoever controls the address, nor their location, nor anything else about them is recorded on the blockchain. Whoever controls the address did not respond to a request for comment from The Post via a blockchain chat service.
Ukraine, which hadn’t asked for NFTs, received a map of the Donetsk area of eastern Ukraine, parts of which have been controlled by Russian-backed separatists, in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, plus photos of blue-and-yellow peace signs and an animated “fire dragon.” NFT donations also included images from the Shibelon collection, which is “based on a mythology in which Elon Musk was granted genius powers by an alien, who also created bitcoin,” wrote journalist Jacob Silverman, who is working on a book about crypto.
Chobanian, the Kuna.io chief executive, said that Ukraine has not needed to sell the NFTs because currency donations keep flooding in but that the government will sell them if needed. “It doesn’t matter, we can sell anything now,” he said.
In addition to well-established cryptocurrencies, Ukraine received donations denominated in almost 100 obscure digital currencies, according to a Post analysis of data from Etherscan. They included a new one named Save Ukraine, another with a racially abusive name, and several themed after crypto community in-jokes focused on dogs and Musk, the Tesla CEO.
The government’s strategy has been to convert less popular cryptocurrencies into traditional money first and hold bitcoin and ether in reserves because they are more stable and liquid, Chobanian said.
Donations were still streaming in as new efforts to raise crypto for the Ukrainian government cropped up. Early Tuesday morning Ukraine time, Fedorov announced AidForUkraine, a joint effort of his Digital Ministry, developers behind the Solana blockchain and Everstake. So far, AidForUkraine has raised $1.4 million, according to its website.
The speed with which the AidForUkraine fundraising effort came together was “magic,” said Everstake’s Vasylchuk, who fled Kyiv days before the invasion thanks to his pilot’s license and is in temporary housing in Florida. In a group chat on Signal, the encrypted messaging app, he and Anatoly Yakovenko, the Ukrainian American co-founder of Solana, spoke with members of Ukraine’s central bank, the Digital Ministry, FTX and others, Vasylchuk said.
But in perhaps the strangest turn yet, on Wednesday morning, the Ukrainian government tweeted confirmation that there would be an “airdrop” for donors on Thursday, but it offered no details about what that would entail. Airdrops, which promise to “drop” a token into a crypto wallet for participating consumers, are a popular way for crypto projects to lure new users with the promise of a complimentary NFT, which could be used as a ticket into future events, a collectible that increases in value over time, or a governance token that bestows the right to vote on collective decisions.
“It wasn’t that long ago that when you said you were going to do an airdrop, you know, as a war torn country, [it] meant food and medicine were going to be literally dropped from the air to your people,” Cas Piancey, co-host of the podcast Crypto Critic, posted on Twitter. “Now it means the war torn country will create a token and give it away.”
Eric Wall, chief information officer of Arcane Assets, a Scandinavian-based cryptocurrency investment firm, tweeted that Ukraine’s move was “karma gamification.”
Less than two days later, Fedorov announced that the airdrop had been canceled. Instead, he tweeted, the government would launch a new NFT project to support Ukraine’s military. He emphasized that there were no plans for Ukraine to issue its own interchangeable token, like bitcoin, perhaps in reference to conjecture about such an idea.
As much as airdrops can spur onlookers to donate, they can also inspire “airdrop farming,” in which crypto holders hoping to grab the reward do the bare minimum to participate. After the initial announcement, some 8,300 people donated less than $10.
Beyond the official government-led effort, Come Back Alive, an NGO benefiting Ukraine’s army, has also received millions in cryptocurrency donations — and is getting millions more from UkraineDAO, a group organized on the blockchain that held an auction to raise funds, according to blockchain data.
The NGO organizers pivoted to crypto after their campaign was suspended from Patreon. But UkraineDAO is limiting spending to helping the victims of war, the New York Times reported. Patreon spokesperson Ellen Satterwhite said that would “absolutely be allowable under our guidelines.”
Ukraine has not ruled out using donations to buy lethal weapons, Chobanian said, but he was not sure whether that was feasible. “Another day like this and we’ll be buying lethal weapons,” he said on Telegram from Ukraine early Tuesday.