The largest European conflict since World War II is raging in Ukraine since Russia attacked them. In the Washington Post people call this attack and Russia’s invasion “the world’s first crypto war”, and one thing is sure, this war united the NFT community.
In the act of solidarity, crypto enthusiasts are rallying to support Ukraine and donate. So many people are donating to help Ukrainian people. NFT community has also shown a lot of support. Multiple prominent NFT collectors took to Twitter to promote Ukrainian artists following Russia’s invasion of the eastern European country. They made a list of Ukrainian NFT artists that you can support and links to their artwork on the NFT platform such as OpenSea, Foundation, and Rarible. Many community members then rallied to buy art from Ukrainian artists as news of the conflict broke, with artists expressing their thanks for the support. One of Ukrainian NFT artists Marina Light sold 22 pieces on OpenSea Thursday through Friday which was her biggest burst of sales. She was very moved by the support of the NFT community.
The support for Ukraine also came after a Ukrainian official posted on his Twitter account that they would accept cryptocurrency donations. Hours after that announcement the Ukrainian government received $4.3 million in the donation.
A single donation of $1.86 million came from the NFT collection “Censored” created by digital artist Pak and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Leading crypto-figures are having their attitude toward this conflict, one of them is Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, who earlier this week tweeted, “Ethereum is neutral, but I am not”. He pointed followers to UkraineDAO, co-founded by Pussy Riot, Trippy Labs, and members of PleasrDAO.
The community of over 37 artists and NFT leaders formed RELI3F, a web3 initiative consisting of NFT leaders to provide global humanitarian aid. Within 30 seconds of the initial launch, the project sold out earning over a million dollars. The project started when influential NFT community builder Andrew Wang tweeted about the situation in Ukraine, then Giovanni offered his contribution. Another important member is Satvik Sethi who brought together Wang and Giovanni. Additionally, SignorCrypto who’s a developer extraordinaire was excited to put together RELI3F.xyz, the project’s official website, as well as smart contract, and undertook all technical work.
After all of this, Ukraine has received almost $22 million in cryptocurrency in order to repel the invasion. Despite the fact that the NFT community came together for this occasion and demonstrated that we are all people. WE PREFER PEACE OVER WAR!
