UPDATED: Report on Crypto Donations Raised in Support of Ukraine

 This updated report from the Crystal analytics team outlines the surge and dynamics in crypto donations made to Ukraine, along with a list of verified donation links.

[ORIGINAL POST: March 4, 2022. UPDATE #1: March 10, 2022. UPDATE #2: May 12, 2022 UPDATE #3: September 30, 2022. UPDATE #4: November 30, 2022               UPDATE#5: February 23, 2023]

In the wake of the brutal attack on Ukraine’s democracy by the Russian Federation, beginning February 24, 2022, there has been a huge surge in online donations being sent to Ukrainian fundraising programs from around the world. The amount of donations in crypto is notable, most likely the biggest crypto donations drive so far in history, and the tech-savviness of the Ukrainian government and their supporting teams has allowed for official crypto donation portals for the various currencies to be created almost immediately. 

Crystal’s analysts are monitoring the cryptocurrency donation programs that have been launched in support of Ukraine – both by the government and other entities – noting that over $187+ million in crypto donations have been collected so far as of February 23, 2023. (for November 30, 2022 we calculated $184+ million, for September 30, 2022 we calculated $178+ million, for May 12, 2022, we calculated $125+ million, on March 10, 2022, we calculated $82+ million, and for March 4, 2022, we calculated it at $53+ million). 

Compared with traditional finance (tradfi) donations – where, for example, UAH 6 billion+ so far had been transferred to a special account of Ukraine’s armed forces by March 2, 2022, we can see that tradfi fundraising still outways crypto fundraising by a long way. However, it is heartening to see the crypto community come together in aid of Ukraine. It confirms the reason that many of us are dedicated to the decentralized finance mission. 

While this type of fundraising is generally well-intended by the many involved, major online donation often drives – if not always – find themselves followed by bad actor activity, where we can blatantly see scammers and illicit entities publishing fake addresses for donations and then, funds disappearing. This activity is being identified and marked down on Crystal’s platform. In this report, you can see the dynamics of the various verified crypto donation programs we’ve noted so far, and at the end of this report, you’ll see how you can help report potentially risky crypto donation activity via our (free) Crystal Block Explorer. 

We have also created a list of official Ukraine donation programs, go to our verified list: 

[GO TO OUR LIST OF VERIFIED DONATIONS PROGRAMS] 

Donations by type

According to our February 23 , 2023 data, a majority of the crypto donations made so far have been targeted to support the Ukrainian army, with a slightly lesser amount of donations having been made to humanitarian programs supporting the cause. This ratio changed from 61% for the military organizations and 39% donated to humanitarian aid by February 23, 2023. 

Donations by currency

Within the crypto donation programs, we looked at, we were also able to analyze the donations by currency, and we can see that as of February 23, 2023, more than half of the donations made so far have been in ETH (ether), with another large portion having been donated in USDT (Tether), BTC (bitcoin), and BUSD (Binance USD). 

NOTE: We will continue to update this report as crypto donations continue in support of the cause.

Verified donation program links 

With the potentially large number of scam donation links being passed around (wittingly or unwittingly), the Crystal team would like to aid those who want to help by verifying donation programs and links.  We’ve created a webpage with a list of up-to-date donations links that our analytics team has corroborated via multiple security checks. This information is being monitored and updated to ensure the safety of donations for Ukraine. 

[GO TO OUR LIST OF VERIFIED DONATIONS PROGRAMS] 

How to protect donators from scams 

It’s important that the crypto community works together to report illegitimate donation programs so we can protect donors, secure the industry, and ensure all donations go to the right destination. To report data related to scam donations, please go to Crystal Block Explorer and click on “Report Address.” Our team will assess the details as soon as we can.  

For more information, get in touch with the team at [email protected]   

Disclaimer: Crystal aggregates data on blockchain entities related to transactional fund flows and direct and indirect wallet connections and sources of funds, along with any public forum mentions and other related mentions found. We do not collect or keep personal data related to any individual on the analytics platform.