70 | Crypto Saving Ukraine... And Russia
Hey Friends,
In the previous newsletter I shared some ways to support Ukraine 🇺🇦 in this crazy period but I skipped an important one: Crypto.
The Ukrainian government launched a new crypto donations website literally today partnering with FTX and Everstake: Aid For Ukraine. They're routing all donations to the National Bank of Ukraine to support humanitarian aid programs and Ukraine's armed forces. So far they have raised around $50 million in bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and other cryptocurrencies such as USDT, DOT, SOL, DOGE, XMR, ICX and NEO.
This is huge and you should know what's really happening here. Whether you care about crypto or not, this is changing EVERYTHING.
Disclaimer: what you're about to read is purely my opinion based on what I see. I'm not sponsored by anyone to share this.
🤯 Why This Is Huge
This is the first time EVER of a cryptocurrency exchange directly cooperating with a public financial entity to provide a channel for crypto donations. To be clear: public and private sectors together in crypto.
🤓 How It Works
Everstake is an Ukraine-based company and FTX is a Bahamian cryptocurrency exchange. So whenever you donate crypto, FTX converts that into fiat (legal tender money: dollars, euros, pounds, etc.) and sends the donations to the National Bank of Ukraine.
😧 Great But…
Ukraine is not just the only one receiving crypto. Russia is also receiving crypto from multiple sources. So Ukrainian leaders are putting pressure on crypto exchanges to freeze digital wallets not just from politicians in Russia but also from ordinary people.
This is a real problem as this would contradict the fundamental purposes of trading crypto in the first place. But there's clearly an underlying interest because Binance for example has Russia as its 2nd largest market of traffic. So it also feels like this is not just principles but monetary interest from exchanges.
In fact, a large number of Russian people are moving their money into cryptocurrency as we speak. The governments and financial institutions are monitoring this.
Why do you think the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank are now trying to accelerate the crypto regulation? Because, it's easy to evade sanctions.
You see my point? Crypto is helping Ukraine and Russia at the same time. Cryptocurrency is becoming just as important to these people as anything else that matters.
🤫 Next Steps
The crypto industry needs to evolve faster and show that it will work with agencies to make sure the platforms are not misuse to avoid sanctions. This is a great moment to be on the right side of history.
If the exchanges manage to achieve that then this will become even more real and serious threat to fiat.
I cannot predict the future but what it's certain is that crypto is a crucial player in this war and it will be a major player in the Ukraine post war. This is the next level of the crypto digital revolution.
😏 How To Be Part Of The Change
You can donate crypto in the official website Aid For Ukraine. I've done it already! But first you need to make sure you actually have crypto in your digital wallet. If you don't know how to get started, this is simple:
Open an account in an exchange. There are many but an easy one to start is Coinbase. If you use my link, you'll get $10. 📂
Get yourself a digital wallet. There are also many but to keep it simple Coinbase also has a wallet. You can download it here. Alternatively you can also use BlockFi (my favourite) and with this link you also get $10. BlockFi also gives you an Interest Account, so you'll get paid in crypto every month as long as you have some funds there. Pretty cool. 💸
Authenticator. You need one to make sure transactions are secured, you can type on your App Store: Authenticator and download it. 🔐
That's it. You can now go and donate crypto. Of course you can also donate “cash” but then you wouldn't understand how this works. 🙌
Don't get me wrong. This is about helping Ukraine but if you can read between the lines, there's a massive opportunity to finally adopt crypto (in case you're not part of the community yet). Ignore when people say “it's too late, too expensive”. No one can predict future performance but we're entering a new monetary era and digital currencies seem to be unavoidable.
Have a great week!
Alejandro
PS: if you gained value, please share this post with your friends 💌
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