After the invasion of Russia the week prior, Ukraine’s government quickly scrapped its anticipated crypto-airdrop and announced that it would rather sell NFTs to collect funds.
The Minister for Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov took to Twitter to convey the following:
“After careful consideration we decided to cancel airdrop. Every day there are more and more people willing to help Ukraine to fight back the agression. Instead, we will announce NFTs to support Ukrainian Armed Forces soon. We DO NOT HAVE any plans to issue any fungible tokens.”
Scam artists had previously seemed to be targeting Ukraine’s fundraising efforts by releasing a bogus token that seemed to be authentic. This cryptocurrency was announced as official by news outlets, and it quickly acquired substantial trading volume on exchange platforms.
However, there were other warning signs, such as the way the token was designed to appear as if it was launched from the public Ethereum address of Ukraine when it was originally launched by another entity altogether.
Though the airdrop is not taking place anymore, it was an effective marketing tool in terms of attracting more contributions. Following the announcement of the airdrop, contributions to Ukraine skyrocketed in relation to the anticipated token, with millions pouring into the country’s accounts.
Even though later donors will not receive the planned token, they will be able to boast that they have been challenged by an independent country.