Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, has announced that it is now possible to make donations in Dogecoin (DOGE) to help Ukraine. He took the opportunity to tackle the price of the ruble and to ask Elon Musk and the creator of Dogecoin to help them.
Ukraine accepting Dogecoin donations
The list of cryptocurrencies accepted for donations in support of Ukraine continues to grow. After Polkadot’s DOT, preceded by Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and USDC ERC-20, it’s the turn of Dogecoin (DOGE) to make its entry.
Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ukrainian deputy prime minister, was the first to announce this via his Twitter account, taking the opportunity to make a dig at Russia:
@dogecoin exceeded Russian ruble in value. We start to accept donations in meme coin. Now even meme can support our army and save lives from Russian invaders. $DOGE owners of the world, @elonmusk, @BillyM2k, let’s do it. Official $DOGE wallet: DS76K9uJJzQjCFvAbpPGtFerp1qkJoeLwL
– Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) March 2, 2022
” The value of Dogecoin has surpassed that of the ruble. We now accept donations in memecoins. Now even memes can support our army and save lives from the Russian invader. Owners of the DOGE all around the Earth, Elon Musk and Shibetoshi Nakamoto [creator of Dogecoin], let’s go. “
Within 2 hours, more than 210 transactions have been made on the new address, for a total of 52,000 DOGE, or about $6,900 at the time of writing.
Recall that according to one of its tweets, the Ukrainian government announced that it would gradually accept new cryptocurrencies for donations. So we can expect the list to grow further in the coming days.
The role of cryptocurrencies in the conflict
Cryptocurrencies figure prominently in the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, on both sides.
On the Russian side first, it had been imagined that digital assets could serve as at least a temporary way out for the country, especially after the SWIFT network ousted several of its major banks. An idea denied by Jake Chervinsky, the executive vice president of the Blockchain Association, for whom it would be a counterproductive choice.
However, it should be noted that Russian citizens continue to be able to take advantage of the various cryptocurrency platforms, whether decentralised or not, despite the request of Joe Biden’s government to cut off their access. Binance had explicitly announced that it did not want to prevent its Russian users from using the services of its platform.
However, on the Ukrainian side, the government has been accepting cryptocurrency donations since 28 February, which amount to several tens of millions of dollars and continue to flow in from all sides.
Apart from direct donations to Ukraine, many associations have also set up a support system through cryptocurrencies, such as UkraineDAO ($6.7 million), NGO Come Back Alive ($9 million) or Unchain Fund ($2 million), to name the main ones.
Finally, Ukrainian citizens are almost forced to turn to cryptocurrencies as their withdrawal limits have been limited and FOREX withdrawals have been banned altogether to avoid possible capital flight.
