Justin Sun, the founder of the Tron blockchain (TRX), has come under fire on Twitter for his comments about the Ukraine airdrop (which has since been cancelled). While the government’s donation campaign can be described as a success, there is some marketing misuse to be noted.
Justin Sun’s behaviour regarding Ukraine raises questions
After starting to accept donations in Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies this weekend, the Ukrainian government had initially made it known earlier this week that donors would be rewarded with an airdrop.
The fact is that we still had too little information about this “thank you gift”, except that the snapshot was originally supposed to be taken today. But Justin Sun, the founder of the Tron blockchain (TRX), made a point of complaining that his network’s users had also donated to Ukraine, but that they would not be eligible for the airdrop. Here is a screenshot of the tweet, since deleted by Justin Sun:
At the time of the incident, we actually had no idea whether Tron users would be eligible for this award or not, but its founder goes further and calls it an injustice:
“It’s not about expecting a return, but if an airdrop goes to everyone who gave by excluding us that’s INJUST!”
The community has made it clear on Twitter that it finds this behaviour problematic. Indeed, this is not a decentralised finance protocol (DeFi) carrying out an airdrop, but a war and all the catastrophe that implies behind it.
The irony is that in the end it looks like no one will be eligible, as Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ukrainian deputy prime minister announced on Twitter that the government was backtracking on what was originally planned:
After careful consideration we decided to cancel airdrop. Every day there are more and more people willing to help Ukraine to fight back the aggression. Instead, we will announce NFTs to support Ukrainian Armed Forces soon. We DO NOT HAVE any plans to issue any fungible tokens
– Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) March 3, 2022
A misplaced self-promotion of the crypto ecosystem
Already this weekend, Justin Sun took advantage of the publication of donation addresses on the Twitter account of the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister to promote his ecosystem:
@FedorovMykhailo As you know, TRON is a fast growing blockchain with 80m global users and we will rally support from our community for Ukraine! It will be great if you can open TRX token donation support as well. Just the same USDT(trc20) address should be feasible. https://t.co/dSi3weas2i
– H.E. Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) February 26, 2022
Of course, we could also mention Gavin Wood, the founder of the Polkadot Ecosystem (DOT) who donated $5.6 million in DOT.
This is a very substantial and welcome donation, but it required him to request the addition of an address from his network when this generous gesture could just as easily have been made with one of the networks already provided.
Even if this kind of behaviour is not specific to cryptocurrency, it is a shame that some figureheads seize on such an event to advertise it.
There is no doubt that these people sincerely want to help Ukraine, but one can question the way they do it, which can be associated with promotion. The principle of a donation is to expect nothing in return, as the crypto community has not failed to point out to those concerned.
