Even though crypto has been in a bear market for the whole year that has not stopped the adoption of crypto for various new uses. One of the biggest adoptions, at least of the scale we are currently seeing, is the use of cryptocurrencies to fund relief in Ukraine since they were invaded by Russia. While previously we had seen crypto used to help fund relief efforts around the world it had never been done at the scale that we are currently seeing in Ukraine. For the most part, headlines have centered around how much money Ukraine was raking in to buy humanitarian supplies with crypto donations. It is important to note that these funds were not used at all on any offensive weaponry rather it has been spent on things like first aid kits, body armor, food, and medication among others.
For the first time that I have seen a report has come out about how Russia has faired in its ability to raise crypto funds for its troops. I do not think it should be much of a surprise to see that Pro-Russian organizations are struggling to come even remotely close to those raised by Pro-Ukraine organizations. As Chainalysis has shown it is a completely one-sided contest and even within Pro-Russian orgs one account has almost as much as the next 9 combined.
As the report and subsequent discussions have highlighted while $2.2 million work of crypto being donated is a significant amount of money when you compare it to the amount that we know has been donated in support of Ukraine it only is about 4% of what Ukraine has received. Something that I think further shows the difference between how the two are generating their funding is that the Pro-Russian side has allegedly been selling fake NFTs of famous paintings as well as NFTs of Ukrainian city's coats of arms. In my eyes, this shows that Russian supporters struggle to generate donations while Ukraine did not initially offer anything when they started to receive their first donations. To generate donations the Pro-Russia side has had to resort to cheap tactics like fake NFTs.
As I have always tried to say I think it is important that we highlight news and insight into both sides of things. This study I think really does show that even with a country that is one of the top miners and whose allies are in the number two and three spots the lack of donations shows that crypto is not a viable way to sneak around sanctions. With this in mind, I think that this report does a fantastic job of alleviating concerns people had about crypto's role in the conflict as well.
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