The Ukrainian government has officially stated that it will airdrop to cryptocurrency donors. A tweet by @FedoroMykhailo (Vice-Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine), announced: “Snapshot will be taken tomorrow, on March 3rd, at 6 pm Kyiv time (UTC/GMT +2 hours). Reward to follow!” The specific airdrop rules are, however, still unclear.
Airdrop is a method used in crypto trading. Apart from the general trading method by investing own money, often free coins or tokens are provided to users with public crypto wallets in order to promote a new virtual currency or incentivise the use of certain platforms.
Read more about crypto airdrop here.
The Ukrainian government had appealed the world to donate in cryptocurrencies on February 26, 2022. An official tweet stated: “Stand with the people of Ukraine. Now accepting cryptocurrency donations. Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT…”
After the appeal, donations came from various sources. The Ukrainian government and NGOs providing support to the military have raised $35 million, through more than 35,000 crypto asset donations since the start of the Russian invasion. This includes a $5.8 million donation by Polkadot founder Gavin Wood, and a CryptoPunk NFT worth over $200,000, according to data provider platform elliptic.co.
Airdrops are typically part of a larger marketing campaign that includes social media promotions, blog postings and various levels of crypto holder participation.
After receiving such overwhelming donations, Fedorov thanked all crypto communities for the response. “Crypto community continue (sic) to support Ukraine. I am grateful to @gavofyork, who made an impressive donation of $5M from @Polkadot $DOT. This will certainly contribute to the Ukrainian victory as well as support civil people. We will win — the best people with us," he tweeted. Earlier, he also appealed to major crypto exchanges to block services in Russia.
Ukraine is not the first country to have started an airdrop event. Earlier, El Salvador airdropped Bitcoins worth $30 to its citizens in 2021, according to various media reports. But in the Russia-Ukraine war, cryptocurrency has emerged as a financial weapon.
The Ukrainian government is accepting donations in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and, most recently, in Polkadot (DOT), which may have led to a rise in the prices of these cryptocurrencies in the last 24 hours.
Data from Coinmarketcap.com shows that Bitcoin (BTC) was trading at $43,925.06, a 1.27 per cent rise in the last 24 hours. Ethereum (ETH) was up 2.93 per cent and was trading at $2,993.05. Polkadot was up 1.93 per cent at $18.94.
