Ukraine’s Airdrop Tweet Results In Significant Spike In Crypto Donations

Ukraine’s tweet announcing that an airdrop is inbound has resulted in a wave of micro-donations on the Ethereum blockchain. The donations number in the thousands and range from $0.0001 ETH to $0.01 ETH. 

So far, Ukraine has received over $7 million in crypto donations since the announcement. 

Burgeoning Donations 

Ukraine has seen crypto donations to the country skyrocket since the country’s Twitter account tweeted on the 26th of February that it would begin accepting donations in cryptocurrency. Since that tweet, the country has seen over $40 million in donations, with the number set to climb higher. 

Data from Dune Analytics also revealed that the number of unique wallets that donated cryptocurrency to Ukraine in the hours after Ukraine’s airdrop tweet has already surpassed the number of unique wallets that had donated to the country before the tweet. 

Users Attempting To Game The Airdrop 

The significant increase in donations suggests that Ethereum users could be trying to game the airdrop, employing a Sybil attack on Ukraine’s Ethereum wallet. In this method, a user typically makes several small donations from multiple wallets instead of a single large donation. This could allow Ukraine to airdrop the reward to unique wallets, giving the owners of multiple donor wallets to receive multiple tranches of the airdrop. 

“Every single Ethereum block now has tx that is donating to the @Ukraine, 95% are either 0.001 ETH or 0.01 eth trying to capture the max value of the airdrop. So far, 25k addresses have been donated. This is going to be so controversial either way how it will end up.”

DeFi users have earlier made use of this approach to increase their share of tokens in an airdrop. With the current situation, it looks like the method is in use to game the rewards for donating towards a war and geopolitical crisis. 

No Clarity On The Airdrop 

So far, there is still no clarity on what mystery item or token Ukraine would airdrop to wallets that have donated. There is also no clarity on how recipients are being evaluated for their eligibility to receive airdrops. One approach that the country could take is to restrict the airdrops for wallets that have donated above a specific amount. 

According to the announcement, the snapshot will be taken at 6 pm, Kiev time, on the 3rd of March. The snapshot would most likely consist of a list of wallets that have been donated to Ukraine. The timing of the snapshot also suggests that the microdonations on Ethereum could continue for another day at least. 

Crypto Community Answers Ukraine’s Call For Help  

The crypto community has rallied in support of Ukraine after the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, published BTC, ETH and TRON-based TRC-20 USDT wallets where the crypto community could send funds and directly support the Ukrainian people against the Russian invasion. So far, the addresses have collected over $15 million, and the funds have already been put to use. 

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.