Is Crypto The New Way To Fundraise During War?

Soon after Russia’s invasion, Ukrainian leaders knew they had to raise charitable donations for weapons, armor, and other supplies for the war effort. But due to the military nature of the spending, many traditional fundraising methods were restricted for Ukraine. That’s when the country decided to leverage the power of cryptocurrency to raise funds from donors around the world. 

In this episode of Public Key, our host, Ian Andrews, CMO at Chainalysis, sits down for an encore presentation with his colleagues,  Kimberly Grauer, Director of Research,  and Salman Banaei, Head of Public Policy for North America, to discuss emerging cryptocurrency adoption in Ukraine and the benefits of cryptocurrency humanitarian fundraising efforts.

The trio also touches on how illicit actors take advantage of these crises for scamming, and on whether or not cryptocurrency exchanges should heed Ukrainian officials’ requests to ban Russian users from their platforms — this comes as ruble trading volumes on exchanges have spiked in recent weeks. The informative discussion continues with data-driven reasoning as to why Russian oligarchs are not evading sanctions via large value cryptocurrency transactions. Finally, the panel concludes the conversation by examining inflows and outflows of cryptocurrency exchanges frequented by Russian users and analyzing the activity of Russian cryptocurrency whales. 

Minute-by-minute episode breakdown

• (1:05) – How Cryptocurrency usage is being adopted by Ukraine and other jurisdictions
• (3:50) – The benefits of Cryptocurrency when traditional financial markets are restricted 
• (5:20) – Scams that take advantage during crisis and political turmoil 
• (8:25) – Should cryptocurrency exchanges restrict non-sanctioned Russian users
• (10:05) – Why NGOs could start using cryptocurrency for relief efforts and the use of the Ruble
• (12:05) – Oligarchs don’t appear to be using large amounts of cryptocurrency to evade sanctions 
• (14:55) – The net outflows of Russian cryptocurrency exchanges remain relatively flat 
• (16:05) – Most concentration of cryptocurrency whales were in the Russian Time zones 

Related resources

Check out more resources from Chainalysis that perfectly complement this episode of the Public Key.

• Blog: Cryptocurrency Brings Millions in Aid to Ukraine, But Could It Also Be Used For Russian Sanctions Evasion?
• Report: The Chainalysis 2021 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report 
• Webinar: The Chainalysis 2021 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report, Part 1 of 2 
• Blog: Six Steps Exchanges Can Take to Comply With Cryptocurrency Sanctions 
• Report: The Chainalysis 2022 Crypto Crime Report 
• CoinDesk: Ukraine Details What Crypto Donations Are Being Spent On 

Speakers on today’s episode

• Ian Andrews * Host * (Chief Marketing Officer, Chainalysis) https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianhandrews
  
• Kimberly Grauer (Director of Research, Chainalysis)  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberly-grauer-a9501144
• Salman Banaei (Co-head of Policy, Chainalysis) https://www.linkedin.com/in/banaei

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