Despite no end in sight in the war between Russia and Ukraine, the latter’s deputy minister for digital transformation has revealed that Ukraine is already planning to release some moments from the war in the form of digital collectibles. That’s why the country is already making requests to fund its war with Russia through NFTs.
Capitalizing On The NFT Boom
Famous persons in various industries like music, sports, and businesses have joined the NFT bandwagon as that sector witnessed tremendous growth within the past 12 months. But Ukraine had to resort to NFTs to receive donations and empower its military following Russia’s military strike against it since late last month. Ukraine’s previous intention was to airdrop some of its crypto donations (to the tune of tens of millions of dollars). But failure in the airdrop process caused a change of plan towards using NFTs.
The Guardian first reported this news before Alex Bornyakov (Ukraine’s deputy minister for digital transformation) confirmed the news and elaborated on the matter on Monday. Bornyakov explained that these NFTs can be “likened to having a museum of the ongoing war.”
However, the minister neither confirms nor denies that the nation will improve the weaponry of its military base through crypto donations. Bornyakov only stated that the donations would be used to empower its state-owned media and upgrade its defense armory. He said, “part of the donations will be used to purchase more bulletproof vests, night-vision goggles, helmets, and optics.”
As widely reported last week, former heavyweight boxing champion, Wladimir Klitschko, announced that he would launch an NFT collection of its top boxing moments to raise more funds supporting Ukraine’s war against Russia.
Blocking Russia’s Social Media Access Is A Good Thing – Bornyakov
Before invading Ukraine, Russian authorities aired several media campaigns to rationalize its intended plans and actions against Ukraine. However, Bornyakov claimed that using the media to manipulate the truth is Russia’s most lethal weapon. Hence, it is a good development that top social sites like Instagram and Facebook have blocked Russian access to their sites.
The deputy minister further said, “a modification of their information policy or outrightly blocking Russian access is a step in the right direction by social sites and international firms.” It is worthy to note that some crypto platforms have also blocked some Russian wallet addresses, tagging them as being used for illicit transactions. Coinbase is one such crypto platform; it blocked 26K Russian wallet addresses for a reason mentioned above.
Spike In Dubai Real Estate Transactions Caused By Russian Oligarchs – Reuters
A Reuters report has hinted that the recent spike in Dubai real estate transactions is caused by Russian oligarchs seeking haven environments to stack their cash. You’d recall that while Russia has faced sanctions from the G7 nations and EU, the UAE, Georgia, Israel, and India are among the top economies that haven’t issued any sanctions against Russia. A recent Reuters report claims that Dubai-based crypto exchanges are receiving huge requests to sell lots of BTC to fund real estate purchases in the oil-rich nation.
