China Times (www.chinatimes.net.cn) reporter Wang Yongfei ran Xuedong reported in Beijing
In the increasingly tense Russo-Ukrainian war, cryptocurrencies are inevitably involved.
In order to prevent Russian entities from using cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions, the United States, Ukraine and other countries have issued warnings and taken corresponding measures. The number of donations using cryptocurrencies is also increasing, and multiple donation channels have been opened. On March 2, Ukrainian officials tweeted that airdrops would be issued to the addresses of users who donated money to them, and a snapshot would be taken at 0:00 Beijing time on March 4.
"We have no choice but cryptocurrencies." Michael Chobanian, founder of Kuna, Ukraine's main cryptocurrency trading platform, said that Kuna's trading volume has also surged in the past three days.
In the context of surging demand, after Bitcoin touched the low price of $34347, the volatility of the past week has risen by more than $10,000, and the past 7 days have risen by more than 17%. As of the press release, Bitcoin is quoted at $44,408, up 2.79%. The Ethereum price broke through $3,000 and continued to rise.
The amount of donations is increasing day by day
In recent years, blockchain or crypto businesses have almost never lost their voice when all parties need humanitarian donations.
Recently, several enterprises or individuals in the field of encryption have donated to the Ukrainian government or the Ukrainian people. These include Binance, FTX, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, Tron founder Sun Yuchen, and some hacking groups. But the difference is that the channels and purposes of their donations vary.
Still, including Vitalik Buterin, Sun Yuchen, and others stressed on Twitter that cryptocurrencies are neutral and decentralized.
At present, the donation channels mainly include three channels: the official account of the Ukrainian government, the non-governmental organization Come Back Alive, and the UkraineDAO.
In addition, many companies in the field of encryption are also donating to channels such as UNICEF and UNHCR.
According to Binance, its charity, Binance Charity, has pledged $10 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine, which will be paid to large international non-profit organizations such as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and People in Need, to help residents who cannot leave the area and those who have lost their homes, and to support the provision of food, fuel and supplies to refugees in neighboring countries.
Binance focuses on the Ukrainian people, not politics. Zhao Changpeng said, "Our focus is to provide support on the ground, and we only care about the people. ”
Binance Charity has also set up a crypto crowdfunding site for the "Ukraine Emergency Relief Fund", and Binance has taken the lead in donating 16,042 BNB, converting more than $6 million. As of this writing, the Ukrainian Emergency Relief Fund has crowdfunded nearly $7 million, with more than 400 donors.
In addition, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek tweeted that Crypto.com has donated $1 million to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to help the ukrainian people. Sun Yuchen, founder of Tron, said that Tron DAO donated $200,000 to the people of Ukraine in the form of Tron USDT. Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), CEO of crypto exchange FTX, tweeted that $25 was issued to each Ukrainian user of the FTX platform.
Recently, Poké founder Gavin Wood also said that if Ukraine released the Poké address, it would donate $5 million.
It is worth noting that on March 1, the official address of Ukraine opened the Poké address (DOT: 1x8aa2N2Ar9SQweJv9vsuZn3WYDHu7gMQu1RePjZuBe33Hv), and Gavin Wood immediately donated 5.8 million US dollars (298,367 DOT), which is the largest donation to the Ukrainian government in the crypto field so far.
A few days ago, the official Twitter account of the Ukrainian government and Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov offered donations of bitcoins (BTC: 357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P), which, according to Oklink data, received a total of more than 208 BTC, with a current balance of about 5.43 BTC.
In addition, Ethereum (ETH: 0x165CD37b4C644C2921454429E7F9358d18A45e14); stablecoin tether (USDT-TRC20: TEFccmfQ38cZS1DTZVhsxKVDckA8Y6VfCy).
According to the latest donation amount statistics, the official address of Ukraine received a total of more than 20 million US dollars.
In addition, Ukrainian civil society group Ukraine DAO received more than $7.15 million in Ethereum; armed group Come Back Alive received more than $8.75 million; and Unchain.Fund received more than $1.82 million.
Impose sanctions in the cryptocurrency space
Cryptocurrencies have become an important financial tool in the Russo-Ukrainian war, for Ukraine, accepting crypto donations has become an important channel for international forces to express solidarity; for Russia, in the eyes of many European and American countries, cryptocurrencies are expected to free Russia from financial and economic sanctions.
Regulations from the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which went into effect on March 1, show that U.S. residents are not allowed to use digital currencies to facilitate the Russian government and central bank to circumvent U.S. sanctions for their invasion of Ukraine.
On the same day, Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation asked several cryptocurrency exchanges to stop serving Russian users. These include Coinbase, Binance, KuCoin, Bybit, Gate.io and Whitebit, as well as the Ukrainian exchange Kuna.
On February 28, Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, tweeted that I ask all major cryptocurrency exchanges to block the addresses of Russian users. It is crucial not only to freeze addresses related to Politicians of Russia and Belarus, but also of ordinary users.
Multiple exchanges have publicly stated that they will not block all Russian users or IP addresses. If the international community further expands the sanctions, it may be taken to freeze the wallets of individuals on the sanctions list. Coinbase believes that the mission of cryptocurrencies is to improve economic freedom.
Recently, Western countries announced the exclusion of some Russian banks from the Global Interbank Financial Communications Association (SWIFT) payment system, resulting in a sharp fall in the ruble, although the Russian central bank raised interest rates, but in order to resist the continued depreciation of the currency, including cryptocurrencies, gold and other assets have become a new choice for the Russian people.
Whether cryptocurrencies can be another way for Russian banks to ease their exclusion from the SWIFT system is unknown.