As Ukraine grapples with a war waged by Russia, the country has managed to amass large multitudes of donations from across the globe. Most of these donations happened to be in crypto. Even the Ukrainian government sought aid through crypto from the rest of the world. As donations poured into the country, the government has decided to airdrop the crypto garnered.
While Bitcoin [BTC], Ethereum [ETH], and Tether [USDT] were the primary assets for donations, the Ukraine government collaborated with Polkadot [DOT]. Just yesterday, the founder of Polkadot donated $5 million worth of DOT to the war-struck country. Following this, rumors about the government engaging in an airdrop also surfaced. However, the Ukrainian government through its official Twitter handle did not affirm anything.
Earlier today, the government gave a green signal to the airdrop and disclosed that a snapshot would be taken tomorrow. This would make Ukraine the first country in the world to carry out an airdrop for donations. The government tweeted,
The government might be attempting to increase crypto adoption by providing free tokens to the people through the airdrop.
While some praised the administration for its bold decision, opponents had a different opinion. The Ukrainian government’s tweet was inundated with criticism over how the country was misusing the funds. As one Twitter user put it,
“Are you at war or f*****g raising money only”
People encouraged the administration to use the donations rather than generate additional money, prompting a slew of similar tweets.
Here’s how much Ukraine received in crypto donations
As of 2 March 2022, the crypto donations garnered by Ukraine shot up to a whopping $50.97 million. The government first started accepting crypto on 26 February 2022.
These numbers could certainly increase as the government intends to add more coins to its donation list.
Uniswap, on the other hand, spruced things up by enabling any ERC-20 token to be donated. The platform’s most recent interface immediately converts any token to ETH. Following that, the converted ETH would be delivered in one transaction to the Ukraine government.
Uniswap further added,
“The address shared by the Ukrainian government is a centralized exchange that appears to accept only USDT and ETH. We built this interface so anyone who wants to donate but holds other ERC-20 tokens can do so with one click.”