Ever since El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender a ton of light has been shinning on not only them but also who would be the next to follow suit. While this is great and all one thing, in particular, has caught me off guard about this and that would be how Ukraine has been moving and embracing not only Bitcoin but crypto overall. The signs have been there for a while now with rumors coming out in early 2020 and in May of that year the Ukrainian Government approved an order that would study "possible implementation of cryptocurrency mining projects in order to provide additional sales markets for electricity produced by the nuclear power plant". This was light years ahead of any other government even mentioning anything like this!
However, project announcements have been slow-moving, and even when they have been announced development for them has been scarce, and the ones that I have found were iffy at best. One that I will say has some credibility due to the partners is the data center to be constructed next to the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant as Bitfurry Group is the company partnering with the state to build it. This one has a constructions completion date as well that is set for August 31st, 2022. The idea behind this project and others like it is simple. These plants are generating excess electricity so why not go ahead and use it. Nuclear energy while not considered green does not produce near the pollutants that fossil fuels use and is heavily used in countries like France to pivot away from fossil fuels.
Ukraine though has been in the headlines for the last few months though and for reasons that are not entirely their fault. At first, Russia played about 80,000 troops were deployed to the border with Ukraine. This area has seen a ton of violence since the last government was overthrown for its close ties to Russia when the citizens wanted to join the European Union. Separatists in the eastern part of the country rebelled and were aided by Russia and for a while now neither side has really made any movement as a ceasefire has "held". It was during this time that Russia illegally invaded and occupied Crimea something they continue to do to this day.
At the time and still, now it was believed that Russia wanted more of Ukraine than just this peninsula and the reason was rather simple. It does not have a land bridge to it and so to link it with its country Russia had to build a bridge to link it with the mainland. Due to the nature of the area, the bridge is built on its long-term feasibility has been doubted, and by annexing just a little more of Ukraine they could reach the peninsula by land instead!
Currently, it is believed that in excess of 125,000 troops are massed at the borders of Ukraine. However, these masses are no longer just along the Russian/Ukrainian border. They have poured into the country of Belarius as well under the guise of standard military exercises something that defies logic since there is no need to keep adding more and more troops as Russia has. This means that if Russia decided to invade here is where they could be coming from..... all at once...
Initially, when the troops were just along with the eastern front the location of the data center that I mentioned earlier was in a safe location as the plant is in the northern part of the country not far from Belarus. However, with the recent build-up there it is no longer as safe looking as it once was. This could or may have already led to a delay in the development of this data center and any other ones that were being constructed.
Ukraine though has done so much more to further bring in crypto talent and investments! They were the 5th country in the world to recognize Bitcoin as an asset and give it an asset class. Further, they adopted rules that welcomed the development of this space. The federal government even has a partnership with the Stellar Foundation to create and innovate in blockchain. With the developments being rolled out it is a huge disappointment to see it all threatened with war. While nothing so far has happened investors are not going to pour money into a country that could possibly be invaded and trigger mass war in Europe.
Due to the Russian and Western issues though no one really knows about these developments that have occurred and it is saddening to see. Ukraine is still regarded as the possible European center of crypto but that label is under threat now due to the military actions taking place. Regular people are now training in case their country is invaded slowing innovation. One can hope for a peaceful future and soldiers to be removed from the borders but it does not appear like that is a likely thing anytime soon. The biggest question is how long can Ukraine continue to try and maintain some sort of normalcy with a threat like this hanging over its head.
