On March 2, 2022, Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced via Twitter that the country plans to raise more money for the war by selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) instead of a promotional airdrop rewarding crypto donors with tokens.
‘After careful consideration we decided to cancel the 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’, Fedorov tweeted.
The recent move is another sign that Ukraine is taking advantage of blockchain technology and digital assets in helping the country raise funds during Russia’s invasion. In fact, the Ukrainian government has already acquired more than US$42,000,000 worth of cryptocurrency donations, including a digital artwork from CryptoPunks worth about US$200,000.
Before Ukraine came up with the NFT plan, they originally intended to reward crypto donors with an airdrop to encourage more donations from the market. However, a fake account issued counterfeit 7,000,000,000 ‘Peace World Tokens’, gaining a significant trading volume on crypto exchanges. Etherscan soon flagged the fake airdrop, forcing the country to terminate the giveaway of fungible tokens altogether.
However, some Twitter users expressed dismay over Ukraine’s decision which they referred to as a rug pull.
‘Then you shouldn’t have announced the airdrop initially. Sorry but you rendered your future announcements suspect. I tweet this despite having tremendous respect for your cause and nation’, a Twitter user said.
The issuing and selling of Ukraine’s NFTs, however, has not been announced in detail. It is still unsettled whether these cryptographic tokens will be sold in an auction for increased fundraising, or transferred to crypto wallets for free.
In addition, amid the conflict of the war, the country continues receiving crypto donations from the public. The official Twitter account of Ukraine has shared its Ethereum and Bitcoin wallet addresses on Twitter on February 26, 2022, urging crypto users from all over the world to give their support.
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