Why is Ukraine using Bitcoin for donations?

The war in Ukraine started a few months ago. Since then, Ukraine has called for donations and support through the use of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Many people have since donated by simply sending Bitcoins and Ethereum to aid organizations.

The question, however, is why cryptocurrencies were chosen as the donation currency? Why not one of the already existing official currencies such as the US dollar, euro, pound, or even the Ukrainian hryvnia? Why was an unofficial digital currency that is not owned by a government chosen instead?

These are some of the questions we will answer today in this article.

How it started
Russia invaded Ukraine a few weeks ago under the pretext of security concerns and since Ukraine is a relatively small economy with a small military budget, they asked for donations from all over the world through their Twitter account. They had published some crypto wallets on their official Twitter page asking for donations to save Ukraine.

Four days after the wallets were published, more than $10 million was already collected, and that was just in the first four days. Currently, more than $100 million has been raised in Bitcoin to help fund the country and its defense. Much of this revenue comes from the “Crypto Fund for Ukraine,” led by Ukrainian crypto exchange CEO Micheal Chobanian, which accounts for about 60 percent of the donations.

This money was used to help Ukrainian citizens whose lives were severely affected by the war. It was used for supplies such as food rations, helmets, bulletproof vests and other humanitarian services. After some time, much of the money was used to support the Ukrainian army in its fight against Russian forces. Much of the cryptocurrencies came in the form of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether.

Why use cryptocurrencies?
So why were cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum used to receive donations from the public? Why not other currencies?

Well, there are so many obvious advantages to conducting transactions in cryptocurrencies that these advantages outweigh the disadvantages. First of all, collecting donations in cryptocurrencies will encourage many young people to donate, as the crypto community is mainly driven by young people. Another advantage of cryptocurrencies is the fact that it is a decentralized currency, which means that it cannot be influenced by another government.

This also makes transferring money pretty fast and easy and it can be done by almost anyone. It takes almost 24 hours to transfer money, unlike crypto transfers that only take an hour or even minutes for the money to be credited to the recipient.

While crypto donations are generally a good thing, there are some drawbacks, as some people have tried to use the opportunity to carry out fraudulent activities like money laundering