Crypto Donations to Ukrainian Activists Soared in 2021, With Russia Looming at the Border: Elliptic
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Loading... - Charlotte Reid
- 09 Feb 2022
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According to a report by the blockchain analytics company Elliptic, cryptocurrency donations to Ukrainian civil activists and volunteers jumped to more than $570,000 in 2021, a 900% increase compared with the previous year.
The organizations in question emerged during the so-called Maidan revolution in 2014, when the pro-Russia President Victor Yanukovich was ousted. After that, Russia invaded and annexed the Crimea peninsula and fueled a civil war in the Eastern part of Ukraine. That's when the volunteer groups started helping Ukrainian armed forces and targeting pro-Russian militants.
The groups rely on both fiat and crypto donations; however, bitcoin donations in particular have increased significantly over the past year, Elliptic said, because using the crypto allows international donors to bypass financial institutions that have blocked payments to these groups. For example, the bitcoin wallet of Come Back Alive, a non-governmental organization (NGO) raising funds to help the Ukrainian army, raised over 3.8 BTC since August 2021, with a few donations as large as 1 or 2 BTC.
Hacktivist group Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, which targets pro-Russian militants in the eastern region of Donbass, managed to raise about $100,000 over the past year in bitcoin, ether, litecoin and several stablecoins, Elliptic said. Read More…
