Official Ukraine Twitter Account Announcing NFT Airdrop For Donations Riles Up Crypto Community

After days of accepting various cryptocurrencies to a crypto wallet in hopes of supporting Ukraine through alternative means during the ongoing conflict with Russia, it was announced late last night via the official Ukrainian Twitter account that donators will receive an airdropped reward, perhaps an NFT of some sort, for their contributions.

On Saturday, the Ukraine Twitter account posted that the country was accepting donations in the form of cryptocurrency, notably Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT. The post came with the addresses belonging to digital wallets that the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine had control of, promising that the funds would go towards the war effort against Russia.

At the time, there was a lot of speculation about the wallets and the impact that crypto now had in international wars and funding them. Most notable among the takes at the time were how Ethereum, which is co-founded by Vitalik Buterin, a Russian, would take this development. Vitalik's official stance was that while Ethereum is a neutral platform, he is not, and he stands with Ukraine.

Stand with the people of Ukraine. Now accepting cryptocurrency donations. Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT.

BTC – 357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P

ETH and USDT (ERC-20) – 0×165CD37b4C644C2921454429E7F9358d18A45e14

— Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) February 26, 2022

Reminder: Ethereum is neutral, but I am not.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) February 24, 2022

The people of Ukraine</a> are grateful to <a href="https://twitter.com/Uniswap?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">uniswap for their new “donate to Ukraine” feature which automatically exchanges any of their listed tokens to ETH for us. Could @uniswap put it on your home page to help direct more of the crypto community to assist? https://t.co/w8accgNZi8

— Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) March 2, 2022

So cool to see Ukraine raising $3.5 million dollars in crypto donations in just 5 hours.
(note: if you donate, make sure to only use addresses verified by official outlets like below) https://t.co/wXwQfRNaHr pic.twitter.com/4ELJjDTzNP

— Coffeezilla🇺🇦 (@coffeebreak_YT) February 26, 2022

With no official word on an NFT specifically happening via airdrop, it was finally confirmed late last night that the following day a snapshot would be taken, with a reward then sent out to those who donated. An "airdrop" is a common thing in the crypto world, and in this context, it means that the record of everyone who donated to one of the Ukrainian wallets would be counted, then some sort of NFT would be sent for free to the wallet addresses of those who sent something in.

This announcement ruffled the feathers of some crypto enthusiasts online for various reasons. Chief among them is that those who donated using the USDT coin (TRC20) for their donations would be passed up for the proposed reward. Another concern by people was how many gas fees would be paid by the Ukrainian Government as part of the massive airdrop to tens of thousands of people, and that the money would be best spent on the war effort instead.

Answering to the humanitarian appeal from @FedorovMykhailo, TRON community has donated over $1.2M in USDT (TRC20), but now the airdrop just ignores them completely. It is just UNFAIR. We need to fix it! https://t.co/gdF6TTbSbC

— H.E. Justin Sun 🅣🌞🇬🇩 (@justinsuntron) March 2, 2022

What the fuck
Why are y’all doing an airdrop for DONATIONS? USE THE MONEY????!?!
I cant wrap my head around this

— 🎩 OOGA OOGA OOGA :: ) (@MikeBobich) March 2, 2022

Question this airdrop how do you determine the good from the bad? Like some send for peace and others send for war? Do you promote this to get people to actually donate more if so just say so or you hope to give to the Ukraine people actually suffering from your political motive.

— Clone.two 🧙‍♂️ (@Clonestwo) March 2, 2022

The tactic of offering a reward seems to have worked wonders already, as the EtherScan page for Ukraine shows that in the days before the announcement, Ukraine had received approximately 7,000 transactions of people sending in money, and within 12 hours that number has already grown by 30,000.