Ukrainian Government to issue NFTs to gather funds against the Russian invasion

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated additional usecases for Cryptocurrencies and the Blockchain. First, we saw officially the Ukrainian government gathering donations in the form of Cryptocurrencies.

The official Ukrainian Government Twitter account posted wallet addresses for Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, and Polkadot where the crypto community can donate to help the country trying to survive Russian bombs.

Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood were some of the well know figures in the space who have openly supported Ukraine. The first, has publicly supported UkraineDAO, the first DAO created for Ukraine and to gather donations for the humanitarian emergency of refuges fleeing their homes. Gavin, a co-founder of Ethereum, and founder of Polkadot donated $5 million in DOT tokens after the Ukrainian government added a Polkadot wallet address to its donation campaign.

There were ideas floating of a possible airdrop of a new token (probably multichain) organized by the Ukrainian government for those who had already donated to the fundraising campaign but that plan was scraped for the time being.

Instead, Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ukrainian Minister for Digital Transformation, who is leading the effort in the crypto space and the digital frontier, announced that Ukraine will mint NFTs that will be auctioned for bidders who want to support his country's cause. The proceedings from these NFTs will be used to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Such endeavour is less technically complicated than airdropping a new token that could also attract a lot of speculators.

It looks like the Ukrainian government was influenced by the success of UkraineDAO whose Ukrainian Flag NFT was auctioned and sold for 2.258 ETH (~$6.75 million). The sum will go to support the work of the Ukrainian NGO "Come Back Alive".

What we are seeing the past days is that governments can use crypto in ways never done before. Obviously, this is only the beginning. The use case of NFTs as a way to fundraise for causes that the community deems important cannot be understated. The Ukrainian government is the first, but not the last, to realize the breakthrough the Blockchain can offer in their effort to support the country.

Glory to the people of Ukraine in these challenging times.

You can connect with me on
Twitter: www.twitter.com/ceekz5
NoiseCash: https://noise.cash/u/Ceekz
Hive: https://peakd.com/@ceekz
Torum: https://www.torum.com/?referral_code=iamceekz