Unchained - Ukraine Has Received $150 Million in Crypto. Here’s How It Is Being Used - Ep.332

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, all, a few quick announcements before we begin. First, last Friday, I mentioned I will be doing a reading and signing at Harvard this coming Friday, March 25th. I was not aware that this is not an event open to the general public, so sorry about that, but they said I could have a few non-Harvard people there. If you're located in Boston and interested in attending, email hello at unchainedpodcast.com, subject line, Harvard reading, and we will give the few spots out available to the general public first come, first serve. The event again is Friday, March 25th from 4 to 5 p.m. on the Harvard campus at HBS Aldrich 011. I'll be interviewed about my book by N. of Castle's Michelle Choi, and will also do a signing. I also mentioned that I will be moderating a panel the next day, but again,

Starting point is 00:00:50 that is only for Harvard students. Here are the other book events I have coming up. So if you want to see me or get your book signed, please mark your calendars for these dates. I will put all all the details in the show notes, and very soon, we will be putting a section for tours on my website, laura shinn.com. Okay, here's the rest of the upcoming events. On Tuesday, April 5th, from 6 to 8 p.m., I will be doing a reading and signing hosted by the city of Miami Beach and Future Perfect Ventures at Skyyard. Jalak Jobun Poutra, CEO of Future Perfect Ventures, will be interviewing me.

Starting point is 00:01:26 You need to RSVP by April 1st. Information in the show notes. On Saturday, April 9th at 11 a.m., I will be on a panel at the Annapolis Book Festival. On Tuesday, April 12th, at a time TBD, I will be at Startup Grind's Global Event in Redwood City, which is focused this year on Web 3. And finally, I will be in conversation with author Jimmy Soni at the PBS Seattle Crosscut Festival, which takes place from May 4th to May 7th. And I will also be at the Oslood Freedom Forum, which takes place from May 23rd to 25th. Details on these events are TBD. And now, on to the show.

Starting point is 00:02:09 Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained. You're no hype resource for all things Crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin, author of The Cryptopians. I started covering crypto six years ago, and as a senior editor at Forbes, was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full-time. This is the March 22nd, 2022 episode of Unchained. Buy, earn, and spend crypto on the crypto.com app.

Starting point is 00:02:34 New users can enjoy zero credit card fees on crypto purchases in the first 30 days. Download the crypto.com app and get $25 with the code Laura. Link in the description. This episode of Unchained is brought to you by Beefy Finance, the multi-chain yield optimizer. Beefy is the easiest way to earn more from your crypto. Deposit funds into Beefy's Thurface. secure vault to auto-compound yield across 12 blockchains. Got crypto? Choose beefy. Welcome to a new world of crypto-friendly banking with Cross River Bank. Request your Fiat

Starting point is 00:03:12 On-OffRamp solution now at crossriver.com slash crypto. Today's topic is crypto efforts to support Ukraine. Here to discuss our George Kikbanzi, vice chair of Bitfury Group, and Ilya Poloszukin, co-founder of Near Protocol. Welcome, George, Anilia. Hi, Laura. Thank you. Great to be bad. Let's just start with your background in crypto so people understand what your involvement was in crypto before we get to the main topic.

Starting point is 00:03:40 Sure, yeah. Thanks for inviting me here. Kind of my journeys in crypto started in mid-2018, where we were actually trying to build a crowdsourcing platform using blockchain as a payment service. and have kind of struggled to use any of the existing at the moment platforms, have been systems engineers, being ourselves, geeks who like to dig in, we started looking around trying to understand why platforms like Ethereum are not able to handle kind of global payment use case and realizing kind of a set of limitations like usability. like scalability.

Starting point is 00:04:29 And, yeah, trying to explore, can we contribute to existing solutions and then deciding to start near protocol, kind of trying to solve the scalability, security, and simplicity of usage of blockchain. Great. And George? Yeah, I mean, actually, my Bitcoin story started in Ukraine in 2013. I was working with one of the largest aggrove holdings, and the idea was to, you know, take the agroholding public with the Western capital markets and to secure the funding for it.

Starting point is 00:05:03 And through close friends of mine, I met Val Vavillev, you know, who, you know, who is the founder of Bitfury. And the idea was to scale the business and, you know, make it and global. And it's a, it's a funny story because I met Val when Bitcoin was at $20, at $50, at $100. And finally, at this situation where it got to, you know, at 4,500, and I speak into a few of my friends in Silicon Valley and getting feedback that this technology was real and the innovation was serious, I decided to leave the agriculture, the field in Ukraine and join Bitfury. So I've been in the crypto community since 2013, and I've considered myself a dinosaur and have seen a lot happening. And it's been one hell of a right, as you know, though. And so here we're going to be discussing the crypto community efforts in Ukraine. And both of you have personal connections there.

Starting point is 00:06:08 Obviously, George, you even just mentioned that that was where you were when you discovered Bitcoin. But, Ilya, why don't we start with you? What is your connection to Ukraine? Well, I was born there and I lived there until I was 21. So I left to US in 2012. And so studied, you know, my family lived and continued living there. Even after I left, all my friends, classmates, friends of friends, living, many of them are still there. And so, yeah, have kind of pretty deep background from before.

Starting point is 00:06:43 And then over the past year, as near kind of have been after launch, have been scaling out, we actually started building hubs and communities around the world. And I've actually spent a significant amount of my time in Kiev and Harkiv, kind of growing the developer community because there's a lot of VEP3 entrepreneurs and developers there. So engaging with them. We were actually planning to have a blockchain UA in end of March, kind of to galvanize the community there. So, yeah, it's been unfortunate and very devastating

Starting point is 00:07:21 because a lot of, I mean, some of my people I know are right now at territorial defense right now in various cities. Even sounds like colleagues in the ecosystem are there as well. And so, and then obviously just a lot of kind of women and like parents who have been fleeing from the scene there. Yeah, I just need to express my, you know, how sorry I am about everything that, you know, you and your family and all your friends have been going through.

Starting point is 00:07:57 And George, why don't you also describe your connection there? Well, Ukraine is like my second homeland. You know, when Russia struck Georgia in 2008, I was at a time, the world. working in Moscow and basically overnight I had to pick everything up and leave. And I was working for a large U.S.-based hedge fund at the time where I was sort of head of the region. And when, you know, the August war happened, you know, I basically had 24 hours to pick everything up and move a family to Kiev.

Starting point is 00:08:37 You know, I spent six years in Kiev, you know, have obvious a lot of friends. friends, family members. You know, this is the country where my first son was born. My first born was there. It's a country where, you know, I really got the appreciation of the freedom and liberty, love of the people of Ukraine. And this is the country where, you know, I experienced the first Maidan, where people of Ukraine were fed up by the corruption of Yanukkah.

Starting point is 00:09:12 And, you know, we all marched, you know, in, in the streets in 2013 in the Maidan. And actually, I was one of the 33 members of the infamous Tsaryov list where I was deported from Ukraine. It was now led into the country. And, you know, it was sort of a barred from entering the country for my, you know, support and affection towards the cost. So there is a lot of emotion. There's a lot of contact, more, you know, spiritual, you know, from the standpoint of a friend's. We have quite a bit of presence in Ukraine as well from the standpoint of people and software developers working there.

Starting point is 00:09:57 So all in all, you know, there was just a lot of ties and seeing this atrocity being committed in my second homeland, my homeland, I felt compelled to act as soon as practical. in order to do whatever we could to help our friends and people of Ukraine. So let's talk a little bit more about that. A number of people have talked about how there has been a vibrant crypto or Web3 community in Ukraine. So describe what that community was like there, which companies were there or which developers, what that scene was like. Was it more entrepreneurs or investors or traders or just kind of paint a picture of what crypto community was like in Ukraine before this war?

Starting point is 00:10:43 I can maybe cover some of this because I was there in January before leaving for East Denver. And so overall, I would say like the tech community in Ukraine have been growing insanely fast over past 10, 15 years. And I would say big part is because this is a very much career past that is a career past that has clear kind of financial outcomes, which obviously people prefer, and also, you know, you're able to work with your mind and kind of contribute to a global economy. And so because of that, there's kind of a lot of developers who are working actually for companies around the

Starting point is 00:11:29 world in various ways. Some of them are directly selling them throughout staffing, sells them are outsourcing, but a lot of projects that people are using around the world are developed in Ukraine. Like this is booking.com, hotels.com. This is, you know, projects from crypto. I would say probably all of them have somewhere a group of developers working at them in Ukraine, including obviously near, given kind of our roots from, like me coming from Ukraine. And on top of it, I would say because of the product and a Web2 product culture did not develop in Ukraine. There was no time. There was no internal market.

Starting point is 00:12:11 It's kind of hard to break in into, it was hard to break it actually into Silicon Valley. If you're a Ukrainian founder of his Ukrainian company. You need to actually move to US spend some time there and then you can raise funds. But that is not true about that three. And especially it became less true after COVID, where in that, investors became way more kind of, I would say, willing to invest in companies just after a Zoom call with founders. And so I think between Zistow Changes, kind of a lot of new enterprises in Web 3 specifically started in Ukraine because there was already a lot of technical talent or able to do this. But now it could convert into, you know, funding rounds, which then, you know, are able to build bigger teams, you know, build marketing, all those kind of other things that you need to build a proper company.

Starting point is 00:13:04 And so I would say there was kind of on the rise, like, switch from maybe a little bit more retail community, which, to be clear, Ukraine is number four crypto market globally because that the crypto is the way to invest. pretty much there's only two things to invest in real estate and crypto before the war and so and because of such a big technical I would say crowd right like a lot of people know how to do at least like you know can easily figure out how to use crypto changes and then go beyond that right and like have technical capability to read white papers and do all the stuff so a lot of people like I was literally on the train from Kiev to Hartif somebody was talking about all the coins they invested and like if compared them right just randomly on the side. So I would say, like, I saw also the shift where, like, there was a lot of retail, especially kind of in between IT professionals and also beyond that, but then that started to switch and convert into actual founders because it kind of gave them this freedom and ability.

Starting point is 00:14:09 And what we see now is actually this founders being really engaged in kind of the community to help people around the whole country as well, because they're so connected and coming from different directions. as well. Yeah, I agree. I mean, Ukraine has been one of the top destinations for talent. And especially early on, the government was very savvy in terms of experimenting with few blockchain applications and has been actually at the forefront of regulatory aspects of that.

Starting point is 00:14:41 In terms of vibrancy of an entrepreneurship culture, I mean, you have at current moment just numerous groups that, you know, I see various, you know, tasks, whether it is, you know, setting up the, you know, Starlink systems or going in and, you know, setting up the IT army of Ukraine that's going out and helping out with combating the cyber space or, you know, documenting the, you know, the crimes, the war crimes that are being committed. So, you know, there are dozens of these groups, extremely active with savvy founders that have roots not only in Ukraine, but all around the world, that are collaborating on various projects and allocating resources in order to protect their motherland and ensure that, you know, this tyranny, it's warranted and, you know, the peace returns

Starting point is 00:15:40 and Ukraine is, you know, rebuilt to much better than it was before. And I'm absolutely confident that, you know, given the spirit of the people, the world has learned what it is to fight like Ukrainian. And, you know, the Western hemisphere that has been very shallow on understanding what liberty and freedom is, Ukraine has exported it and exported what it means to fight for freedom, to fight for statehood, and fight for liberty. And I think that has lacked to some degree, you know, these were the qualities that have been forgotten all around the world, you know, because frankly speaking, in the last sort of about 10, 15 years, we had this advent of authoritarianism and tyrannies around the world. And, you know,

Starting point is 00:16:28 little Ukraine, you know, it was a David that has roared and has showed the world what it is to, you know, to love the country, to love the freedom and to love the liberty. And I think this will go down in the history books as the shining example. And frankly speaking, as a turning example of a civilization who really focused on really, really what matters and on the big stones. And freedom and liberties is one of those key parameters. Yeah, I agree. And I also think this will go down in the history books because of how quickly crypto got involved in this war. I mean, it was really mind-blowing, frankly, for, you know, as I've said, I started covering this space almost seven years ago. And definitely, you know, at that time,

Starting point is 00:17:13 just with the way the technology had developed, you know, there was. very little adoption. And so to see it become used both kind of on the ground as well as at the highest levels of government very, very quickly or at least discussed, I mean, it's really been remarkable. Let's talk about kind of that on the ground picture first. As far as I understand, and obviously I'm sure you're only aware of the picture in Ukraine, but I even saw that in Russia, you know, people are turning, like everyday people, are turning to crypto to transact. So in Ukraine, why don't you kind of explain what that has looked like, why it is that people have been turning to crypto for what purpose, why is it that they're choosing crypto over other

Starting point is 00:18:00 forms of money and how has the demand for crypto in Ukraine kind of changed people's ability to transact or how they're transacting in crypto? Well, I think it started really at the point where when we learned about this, right, I think kind of all of us try to find a way to help and the simplest way was to donate. And so the first thing I actually did was donating to comeback alive via Bitcoin, which is what a church will talk about probably. But then kind of a group of entrepreneurs, crypto entrepreneurs from Ukraine, kind of came together to form a bit of more, I would say, like focused on humanitarian needs of the people who will be

Starting point is 00:18:48 kind of affected by this. And the benefit there is that if you want to start a new nonprofit, new NGO, that's a very complicated process. If you want to open a bank account, if you want to start accepting donations, then donations themselves, you know, why it transfers like to new NGOs, there's lots of compliance that we'll need to go through. And given we're kind of at a very fast-moving situation, right, that's just not the right way. And so crypto became kind of this really easy way to create an organization that has a specific mandate and is able to distribute this funds as well.

Starting point is 00:19:27 And so, you know, setting up multisics, senti up DAWS, even as a kind of structure, you know, was just super easy and it was done like, you know, it was in minutes. and then, you know, we can start posting it and start spreading it around, right? So the interesting part is that the fund we started called Unchain Fund very much was in the name of the podcast. And so kind of the goal of which was, you know, like Ukraine has this very unfortunate history of being kind of hit by everyone who is fighting over and over again. And Ukraine, you know, people want to stand up and have their own freedom, their own history, not like history of other countries around them.

Starting point is 00:20:06 And so really trying to kind of break this chain of events. And at the same time, you know, use the blockchain, use the crypto as a driver, as an engine for doing that. And so as we launch it, and there's like a number of people like Raph Miller and Oleg Kuchenko, Alexei Merrick, who have been kind of driving this, it allowed to really move, like and start distributing money to people to volunteer. years on the streets at Skiyiv and Harkey, for example, like, was in the same day, right? And so, like, I think within the first day, it was already over a million dollars that, like,

Starting point is 00:20:44 were collected, and then, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars started to be kind of distributed. At this moment, already over $6.9 million was, like, almost $3 million being allocated already. So really, it's kind of the speed, the agility, and also the trust, right, because we can actually build a multi-sig, we can build a Dow structure that is transparent, that is accountable, that we can actually see where the transactions are going and we can assign what a specific needs that be fulfilled. Now, obviously not everything is being accepted in crypto and it still needs to be converted

Starting point is 00:21:20 here and there to Vietnam, which, by the way, big thanks to some of the kind of crypto exchanges in Ukraine that are still running and operating, green that pairs and are able to cash this out. And at the same time, more and more people are willing to accept crypto as well, because it creates, like, they are able, in Ukraine, they're able to kind of have this asset themselves as well, which may be decorrelated of the current exchange rates. Something that interests me about what you said is, so I obviously totally get how fundraising would be a lot faster and easier. But even, you know, when you were saying that the people who are kind of like buying supplies and stuff

Starting point is 00:22:02 that the suppliers are starting to accept it. What's in it for them? Why would they be compelled to do this as well? What is it that, you know, kind of the normal payment system is breaking down or what's happening that would even cause them to start transacting in crypto? So I would say it's actually like,

Starting point is 00:22:20 it was moving down. So first, volunteers who would be going out into a store, they started accepting crypto. And by that, do you mean like Bitcoin and Ether or just define what you mean? Anything near, like anything that's liquid and has a pair with Greenwood for example. Because they could actually convert it to Greenwood to their card and it actually is pretty much instant. And so they can actually get it to their cards from any crypto through the like exchanges like Kuna and Whitebit to their card and pay for it in a store.

Starting point is 00:22:55 These are like prepaid cards, like debit cards? Yeah, like a debit card, yeah. Carried cards are not used as much. But I think, like, that was kind of first step. And so the reasoning to do that actually are limits. So there are limits on exchanges, limits on central bank, like how much currency you can exchange and stuff like this. So this way, kind of by pretty much crowdsourcing, the exchanging on itself was already powerful. But then beyond that, the supplier started accepting it as well because they wanted to deal with dollars,

Starting point is 00:23:27 dollars don't actually are in circulation in Ukraine, right? And so if they want to direct their exchange rate, they can actually accept stable coins, for example, for themselves. Okay. Yeah, because I was hearing that a tether is now more valuable than U.S. dollars, that there's a premium of like four to five percent, and that even then people won't want to sell you their tether because they view it as more valuable than U.S. dollars. Is that something that you've also heard? or what's your sense of why that might be? Yeah, that happens every time.

Starting point is 00:24:01 There's a crunch on demand on going into crypto. That's just like that happens every like few months or every six months, even before when there's like something in the market. The desert price would go up like locally on a spot because it like it's hard to get it. Like if you are in Ukraine, it's actually hard to get Teser from the finance. Right. Because like the flow of money is complicated. But I would say like beyond.

Starting point is 00:24:26 that is people are want to convert currencies back and forth, right, depending on what is their kind of, what is their next steps going to be. And so, yeah, kind of stable coins have been, you know, growing in adoption for sure in Ukraine because they are allowing to kind of move some of the assets they had ingredient, for example, to a stable coin that's not, you know, directly in paper, which is also hard to get by. And George, did you want to add any of this about kind of how everyday people are transacting in crypto? Yeah, I mean, I think to step back a little bit, the whole purpose of kind of realizing, okay, this is, you know, this is quite serious and people of Ukraine will need help,

Starting point is 00:25:14 and they will net a lot of help fast. You know, you step back and, you know, obviously I'm quite familiar with the key crypto community players. You got to step back that crypto itself and the people behind crypto to large extent are the people that have gotten into it to make a world a better place. They have gotten in to improve things to alter the status quo. And when we saw the pictures of the Russian planes attacking innocent civilians, that channeled energy. And in our community, that energy and that support on the crypto community, crypto was just a means of channeling that energy of the support to the people in Krem.

Starting point is 00:26:04 And as soon as the invasion started, which ironically started at 4 in the morning, same time when the Hitler invaded Soviet Union in 1941, 4 a.m., some twisted, you know, Kremlin sort of a plot. You know, in a morning when I woke up and we saw that. the news. First of all, I woke up, I looked at the Bitcoin price. It was down. And I knew, oh, shit, something really must have happened. You know, that was. And actually, interestingly, throughout this sort of a war, every time, you know, we've been waking now and haven't been getting my sleep, but I'm seeing prices. And it's, it's amazing how sort of the

Starting point is 00:26:44 prices reacted when situation got worse versus towards a peace settlement. It really is profound how momentarily the sort of Bitcoin price has been reacting. that obviously the crypto market. So I contacted a few of my friends whom I trust on the ground and I said, listen, you know, we're here, we're here to help. How can we help? And through few of the trusted parties that come out

Starting point is 00:27:08 and come back alive is the organization. And I started going out and how can we make donations? And I realized that their USDA account that was with Pertion or Pantion, the Antion, it was blocked because Pertion considered them to be buying military equipment. And it was a complete BS because the funds that allocated from Comeback Alive were focused primarily on getting defensive gears, such as bulletproof vests, helmets, you know,

Starting point is 00:27:42 medications, you know, various protective gear to protect the cities. And I realized it would not even be worth right now to get the best legal counsel and going and sorting that out. And I realized, why don't we get the BTC address, rev it up, and start promoting. And that's what we've been, you know, we started doing. And in a very short period of time, a lot of that energy was channeled into the Bitcoin wallet. And the volunteers on the ground, you know, use that to acquire those helmets.

Starting point is 00:28:11 And frankly speaking, a lot of the sellers of this equipment, they're completely fine getting paid in the crypto. You know, these are the entities located in Finland, in Sweden, in Germany, in United it stays and there was no issue whatsoever. And I'll tell you more, we actually ran a few of the extraction operations by the ex-Green Berets on the ground and they were completely fine to be paid in Bitcoin to go and get the job done and, you know, to get the innocent, you know, civilians from Charniga, from Sumi, from Kharkiv and other places. So in an environment where there is instability and upheaval in a financial system, what I realized that people view having an option

Starting point is 00:28:51 outside of existing system is extremely valuable. And you just don't know. You may have grievance, but God forbid that National Bank gets bombed or, you know, as you have seen, you know, they're bombing maternity awards. What precludes them bombing central bank and, you know, major bank. And all of a sudden, you know, you're stuck. Your system is frozen. Crypto has provided this alternative, which is extremely valuable in turbulent times

Starting point is 00:29:19 like this. So we had great success and, you know, we raised close to $16 million, which Big Chung has been allocated. And, you know, we're very proud that, you know, many of the crypto community, folks that have come in and made allocations have, you know, have made an impact. And that's where we met with Ilya, through common friends, through, you know, discussions. And one of the first things was Ilya being sort of operational. Like, what are the logistics?

Starting point is 00:29:47 How can we improve it? What is the procurement system? You know, because, yeah, we're sort of getting the funds, but actually how do you make sure that those funds get allocated to the right equipment that get to the right people on the ground that are used in the right operational environment? So we had a few collaborations. And, you know, I'm glad that, you know, in this time of need, many people stepped up from the crypto community through our efforts

Starting point is 00:30:15 or outside our efforts like CZ, from Binance has donated $10 million. Gavin from Polka has donated five. Solana has had a big effort. Outside of Crypto, Ashton, Kutcher and Mila. Mila is from Chernivsi, actually, from West Ukraine, and they started the GoFund campaign, and they're narrowing, you know, nearing $30 million donation.

Starting point is 00:30:39 So all in all, and Mikhailofiorev and the team at ministry, you know, they're nearing all in all in all with all the Ukraine close to 70. So all we know with these efforts, we are kind of approaching 150 million-ish, which properly allocated for the right through a targeted approach, I think, is making tremendous impact. And frankly speaking, this is first time during a war of such scale. Such scale has been organized so rapidly and dispersed so efficiently in time horizon that we have seen. Yeah, it's honestly really remarkable to be watching it from the outside. I mean, it's obviously historic. One point I wanted to clarify, so for when you talked about posting the Bitcoin address,

Starting point is 00:31:25 where was that which? Because obviously there were multiple different fundraising efforts. So for the one that you helped organize, which one was that? It was purely Come Back Alive Foundation at their Bitcoin world. Yeah. So we focused on that. And actually, they have had such huge inflow of not only crypto, but also donations in kind. and also Fiat donations that has sorted out that, you know, they are well funded right now.

Starting point is 00:31:55 And the next effort that we will be announcing in a couple of weeks is actually an effort to help the children of Ukraine. Children that have lost their parents during bombing or, you know, during military, during the war, we'll be raising a foundation to help the children of heroes. It's a children of hero foundation, and we'll be announcing in the next couple of weeks' time. So stay tuned for that. All right. So in a moment, we'll talk more about how these funds will be deployed,

Starting point is 00:32:25 but first, a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible. Finance is changing. Strategies are changing. Holding is changing. Beefy Finance, the multi-chain yield optimizer, allows you to maximize passive income while you sleep. Simply deposit your crypto into B-Fee's secure, industry-leading, auto-companting vaults to put your funds to work. Each one of B-Fee's 740 volts automatically reinvests the

Starting point is 00:32:53 interest gained on your crypto deposits, earning you more while saving you time and fees. B-Fee's strategies create bank-busting APYs with 0% deposit fees at the click of a button. Join $1.4 billion of investments and understand why so many users trust Beefy with their financial independence. Visit beefy.finance and take control of your financial future. Join over 10 million people using Crypto.com, the easiest place to buy, earn, and spend over 150 cryptocurrencies. New users enjoy zero credit card fees on crypto purchases in their first 30 days. With Crypto.com earn, you can get industry-leading interest rates of up to 8.5% on over 40 coins, including Bitcoin, and earn up to 14% on stable coins. With the

Starting point is 00:33:48 crypto.com visa card, you can spend your crypto anywhere. Enjoy up to 8% cash back instantly, plus 100% rebates for your Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon Prime subscriptions, and zero annual fees. Download the crypto.com app and get $25 with the code Laura. Link in the description. Building the next big thing in crypto, Cross River has your back. Whether you are a crypto exchange, N-F-T Marketplace, or wallet, Cross River's integrated API-based platform provides the payments solutions you need to grow. Cross River is powering the future of financial services. A CryptoFinn Industry Award winner and an early partner for companies like Coinbase,

Starting point is 00:34:33 Cross River's tech stack supports crypto partners and enables real-time money movement for consumers. Welcome to a new world of crypto-friendly banking. Request your Fiat on-off-ramp solution now at crossriver.com slash crypto. Back to my conversation with George and Ilya. So we kind of discussed a little bit about how you're using the funds. You know, I have seen some chatter where people have said, oh, you know, do people realize what this money is going toward? You know, you talked about how Patreon blocked those efforts because, you know, they, I guess, have a policy against funding military, the purchase of military equipment. But I did want to ask, so I've heard, you know, from some people that some of the funds are being used to purchase military equipment and then from others that it's

Starting point is 00:35:23 being used to purchase other things, such as like bulletproof vests or night vision goggles or tourniquets. So can you just talk a little bit about how it is that these funds are being used and how those decisions are being made? So for us, kind of the goal, original goal was, yeah, to focus specifically on humanitarian needs. So what are they all kind of, you know, food, shelter, evacuation kind of funds needed? And then kind of over time, there definitely appeared in need that, you know, literally our friends who are, you know, or like for some people, their family, who actually signed up for territorial defense were pretty much sitting there without defensive gear.

Starting point is 00:36:11 They did not have a blue-proof vest. They did not have kind of even basic, like, you know, task type of equipment because it was, you know, not delivered. And so this is where kind of unchained fund, a lot of it was focused on, you know, food, medicine, things that needed for civilians to, you know, survive, get out of the place there are. settled them, for example, in the west of Ukraine. And then this is where I actually connected with George and this comeback alive because, yeah, there was a huge need in, like, how do we get a defensive equipment to the, you know,

Starting point is 00:36:45 our friends pretty much who are in, in this kind of front lines, right? Again, my friends are in hard care, Fred. They are actually in active combat, like, every day. And so at the same time, there are, you know, other friends who are in Europe who are actually procuring can, like, get a lot of this equipment. And so that's where kind of come back alive, I think, became very important piece, at least for me. And I know George kind of was there for day one. Yeah, I mean, you got to understand, Laura, when the extent of the invasion was realized by the Ukrainians, you know,

Starting point is 00:37:24 you had the situation where the country was being attacked from five different sites by, you know, arguably, you know, world's second largest army. Now we know what years of corruption has done to the Russian army and, you know, how sort of a strong it is. But nevertheless, it's a massive army that has attacked from Belarus, from, you know, Russian side, from, you know, the southern flanks. And Ukrainians just started mass mobilization. So you had a case where hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians would be showing up, including, you know, women. And there would be not enough, not only, we know, weapons, but protective gear. So you basically had, you know, all of a sudden, hundreds of thousands of volunteers

Starting point is 00:38:12 ready to stand up and protect the country, but they were completely unprotected. You know, and the priority was sort of a signal that, you know, if you have this full-stage invasion where the major Ukrainian armies bucked down actually in the east with the Donets, and Lugansk region, and you have this major onslaught coming from the north, from the east, and from the south, you need to have these people have protective gear. Because if you don't, first, they're not going to be protecting the civilians. And you've seen cases of, you know, innocent civilians being completely shot out by, you know, by the Russian soldiers.

Starting point is 00:38:52 And second, you're just going to have examination of the humanitarian crisis because you will need the medications to treat these people. And the healthcare system is not equipped to be all of a sudden treating so many wounded and incapacitated people. So we had to scramble. We had to scramble right away to start getting the vests, you know, to start getting, you know, the helmets. These were the priorities. And 80% of the resources were allocated towards that. And then channeling them towards Sumi, towards Kharkov, toward the Chernihan.

Starting point is 00:39:26 and frankly speaking, the reason Kiev has stood and actually thwarted the invasion and now kind of our counterattack and throwing out because of heroic defense of the Harkov and Summyev-Chorniga. Because if the Russian army came through there from the eastern flanks, they would have been already in, you know, in Kiev. And that army was held in the eastern part. And a lot of defensive weapons gear was there. In terms of getting, you know, obviously, you know, the West had this. wake-up call and they realized, okay, well, you know what? Guess what? You know, if Ukraine falls, we are next. And we're next means that in a very high probability NATO fifth article, and you're looking at sort of a World War III, actually, in their regard. So they scrambled

Starting point is 00:40:16 to their credit and they started providing lots of military gear. You know, lots of stingers, lots of general javelins, lots of end laws. So a lot of military equipment has been provided by governments directly. And obviously they have made a big difference. You know, they have made a big difference. It's great to have a courage. It's important, but having modern equipment and modern military equipment does help. And Ukrainians have shown their courage in terms of going out and thwarting their tracks.

Starting point is 00:40:50 We played a small role in terms of making sure that when the army attacks and when the bombs fall, at least they have a protective gear so they don't get injured and they don't put additional strain on the health care system. Listen, in addition, Comeback Alive has been doing a lot of evacuation missions to be taking out women and children from places as far away as Mariupil, for example, that you're seeing. assisting the refugees, you know, that over two and a half million refugees now have gone to, you know, outside Ukraine predominantly towards, you know, Poland and, you know, other place in Western Europe and in Georgia as well. So that has been a primary, primary sort of effort that we've been funding. And so, Ilya, you mentioned how some of your friends are fighting in the front lines. During all this, you know, as we discussed, there is this vibrant

Starting point is 00:41:54 crypto community in the Ukraine. So where did the crypto community go? Are some of those people fighting or did they go to other countries or what has happened to that community? Yeah, I would say there's a combination of. I would say there are a subset of people who either had a military training before or had some kind of training who have decided to stay back and fight. Like it doesn't actually make sense to fight if you don't know because there's been a lot of kind of training prior. It's just indeed like hundreds of thousands of volunteers. And so those people kind of are, you know, like literally some of them in Harkiv right now that I know that we've been helping with protective gear, with getting them mobility, for example, because their cars keep

Starting point is 00:42:44 getting breaking down. It's like, the weather's pretty really bad, right? They also understand. under attack all the time. The other set of people have been kind of helping. So there's a lot of volunteers on the ground who are helping like driving food, water. I mean, things are getting bombed. Like cars are getting shot at. So there's people actually who are driving around delivering food and water and kind of other supplies to people. I can actually send over some pictures of people who have been funding. There is a set of people who have been helping. There is a set of people who have helping out to evacuate others, right, especially when we're talking about women, children, kind of grandparents, like including mine, for example, to get them out of this and kind of move

Starting point is 00:43:29 them toward Western Ukraine and over the border for women and children. And there's a set of people who are not fighters who are in West Ukraine now, who are kind of, you know, one of the other things we need to continue doing is actually working because we will need to restore the Ukraine, which means we need to continue making economy work. And so there's a lot of people who are continuing working as much as it's possible, including, you know, engineers and like folks we're working with who are, you know, continue to contribute even though sometimes you need to go to bomb shelters when there's a siren. And so I think the people who have left, like they're kind of starting to aggregate in different hubs.

Starting point is 00:44:15 For us, we decided Portugal will be one of those hubs. We're setting up kind of infrastructure here for our teams, for near community more broadly, and also kind of trying to help out, like working with local city hall here and some of the other kind of district level books to see how we can help. We actually launched away from Ukraine as a portal for all the information that people need to, like when they are away from Ukraine, immigration, healthcare, and kind of starting to collect volunteer information as well because a lot of people around whole Europe are willing to help. But they don't know how and they don't know how to get matched with people who need help, right? Like we have people offering, you know, translation services. We have people who drivers like actually like there are some volunteers in Romania who helped to drive my family over the border outside, right?

Starting point is 00:45:07 And so like people like that's who are right now driving food and and other supplies. Romanian border into Ukraine, the debt gets distributed back to volunteers that drive it to Harcath. So like all those people, right, they're willing to help. And so like coordinating that, making sure there is a clear kind of place where people can find information and then kind of building a little bit of tech around that, like question answering bots and stuff like this, to kind of help coordinate that. You know, in terms of this issue of people needing help and then, you know, trying to coordinate that help. one of my personal friends tweeted about how her grandmother and father were trapped there. And I

Starting point is 00:45:50 can't remember. I think it was a while before I myself saw the tweet, like maybe like hours after she'd posted it. And by the time I saw it and retweeted it, it already had like 90,000 likes and, you know, tens of thousands of retweets. So definitely. And then later she tweeted that, you know, they were rescued and stuff. But, you know, definitely people were doing all they could. I mean, from our homes on our, on our phones and on Twitter. But, you know, still, it actually hurt her cry for help from San Francisco finally actually did result in her grandmother and father being rescued. So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's really fascinating how this is all happening. But, you know, in a similar vein, I did want to talk a little bit about how the

Starting point is 00:46:38 Ukrainian government has been making these appeals and has been using crypto as a tool. And, And, you know, I don't know how much insight you have there, but, you know, I was just curious, like, how it is that the Ukrainian government, you know, was so kind of savvy about crypto. And if you have any intel on how they had these ideas to just tweet out their various crypto addresses and stuff like that, I think it's very fascinating because I personally don't think that if the U.S. were in the same situation that we would see high-level administration officials tweeting out a Bitcoin or ether address for the U.S. So, you know, I was just interested kind of like how they became so savvy.

Starting point is 00:47:23 Well, so specifically there's a Ministry of Digital Transformation who has been driving all of this efforts. And so all credit to them, they actually been proponents of crypto for a long time. And actually, Ukraine has passed the crypto clarification loss a few weeks before this all start, things started. which we all were super happy about and wanted to celebrate hopeful at the blockchain UA. And so, yeah, in general, yeah, I mean, the Digital Transformation Ministry is kind of extremely savvy in everything digital in general. They have built a kind of an amazing platform called Dia that functions inside Ukraine, which was kind of a single platform for all the services that you would usually engage with. was a government, everything from, you know, taxation, creation of company, medical,

Starting point is 00:48:17 like all of those things were in one place. And it worked with your banking account as well. So it kind of created that whole ecosystem. And, yeah, I mean, they are very savvy in crypto. We, like, actually, we were in the same working space as the DEA development team, which is led by kind of, like, directly by the digital transformation group. And so, kind of in general, they know. very well kind of how all these things work and they started creating accounts pretty

Starting point is 00:48:49 rapidly to collect this. They also are working with a lot of entrepreneurs and kind of are connected with a whole ecosystem. I don't know like how much this is public, but yeah, like they are working with tons of entrepreneurs in crypto kind of both to get help as well as to ask for connections and sounds like technical help as well. They have started the IT Army kind of initiative as well to kind of galvanize the technical talent that Ukraine has to kind of help with a lot of the problems. Both kind of on defensive front, like there have been a cyber attacks from Russia's side as well as limiting kind of the spread of information that Russia had been having.

Starting point is 00:49:32 I mean, if you look, I think it has been profound what Ukrainian government and the leadership has done in terms of utilizing social media platform for reaching out hearts of minds, of not just politicians, but of common people all around the world. And not only Ukrainians have been sort of a kicking ass on the military front, but they completely kicked ass and obliterated Russian propaganda machine. To a point where the propaganda, even inside Russia, is starting to a point where the propaganda, even inside Russia is starting to take, it's kind of, it seems, are coming off, you know. You know, obviously it comes in from the leadership of President Zelensky.

Starting point is 00:50:18 You know, I've met him on a couple of occasions. This is a very patriotic man that, you know, stood up to the challenge. And he has, on a very human level, reached out and pierced through the feelings of people. around the world. And I think the team around him has rallied behind and have used the social media, whether it's, you know, enlisting Elon to get the Starlings or going out and kind of calling out, you know, Samsung or Apple or Google or YouTube in order to do this or that. And obviously when, you know, that those messages kind of come alive that get caught by media and then people that know people talk directly to, you know, to the decision makers and, you know, say, hey, what's going on?

Starting point is 00:51:11 Can you, you know, do this or can you do that? So we've been calling in, frankly, a lot of favors. And not just favors. It's just asking directly, hey, you want to be on the right side of the history. And, you know, this is the situation. And, you know, this is the ask. And, you know, we had a very high convert rate. So the government itself has been very savvy from the reforms that have been doing up to that. And now with this situation, they have completely, you know, sort of a slam dunk in terms of using social media and channels in terms of getting the message out, rallying out support through common people and, you know, rallying up governments. And frankly speaking, if, you know, we didn't have social media and this conflict happened 20 years ago, you know, it would have been a

Starting point is 00:52:00 very, very different outcome. You know, it would have been a very, very hard sort of a push and hard struggle. And, you know, there's been much more tragic and many more atrocities committed and such. But now everything is, you know, live, basically. You have, you know, tanks coming out and Ukrainian partisans are facetiming the locations in real time. And, you know, they're being the, you know, the satellite images or, you know, the recordings and all of that is giving you sort of a live situation of things on the ground that's, you know, helping tremendously. They aren't forces and obviously information war using the tools have been done marvelously and have, you know, given a lot of positive to Ukrainian people.

Starting point is 00:52:51 Yeah, I agree. I've said this repeatedly throughout the episode, but it is just so fascinating to why. because clearly things would have turned out very differently if it weren't for the various ways that the technology both of Web 2 and Web 3 is being used here. One thing that I did want to ask about was, obviously, there was a moment when the Ukrainian government promised an air drop for people who contributed. Obviously, they ended up, you know, kind of saying that they were decided against going through with that.

Starting point is 00:53:23 But what did you make of that move and then the decision? to reverse course, you know, what do you think kind of maybe happen there that initially caused them to make that announcement, but then change their minds? So I don't know the reasoning behind the kind of making the decision and change your mind, but I would say like the idea was definitely to kind of highlight the people who have contributed, right? And so the kind of the idea of to give out NFTs that, you know, would show that you supported through donations. to do this. We can speculate on what we're kind of changing the mind. I think generally right now it's just not the right time. They have plenty of more immediate things to do. And so kind of the

Starting point is 00:54:11 NFD project, there's a lot of NFT projects right now to support Ukraine that are happening. And kind of their goal is to actually raise more funds to then fund them to help people. And so I think there will be a time hopefully soon when this war ends and we're going to switch to recovery mode where we should, you know, highlight people who have helped and who have done, you know, job here, but it's not right now. Right now, it's really kind of how do we stop this? How do we kind of help people who are still in immediate danger and how we kind of help people who are not in immediate danger, but actually are, you know, we'll be running of food or, you know, right now, kind of outside of Ukraine now, kind of in a new environment and actually have huge

Starting point is 00:54:52 PTSD. This is something that I haven't heard anyone talking about, but like even just from the friends who are arriving now in Portugal who have been there or my family like they all have PTSD in some form right they've you know they've been under bombs they've been under shooting they've been like forcefully relocated and like this will be kind of a lot of time to recover and and this is actually something that like I hope you know we can find like this war is you know there's a peace at least some like ceasefire we can start recovering and rebuilding because we can actually rebuild way stronger country from this and help people kind of to really, you know, with this rallying around, get even stronger and bigger country out of Ukraine.

Starting point is 00:55:34 Yeah, one thing I will say, obviously, people probably know already, but after the airdrop was announced, then, of course, there were a bunch of wallets that were farming the air drop, you know, sending like just tiny, tiny, tiny donations. So I do wonder if that played a role, you know, clearly, yeah, it's interesting because, of course, the war has brought out. I think such a great response from the cryptic community. It really highlights kind of all the wonderful things about it. But then, of course, we've also seen the same kind of shady or just opportunistic behaviors that we're all familiar with in crypto as well.

Starting point is 00:56:14 So, you know, we've seen both sides. It's been one of the, I would say, major issues that we actually need Web3 to solve and kind of understand your reputation of people that you're dealing with. because especially now, like a lot of it is in telegram and signal, which is, you know, useful for, for many reasons, but then we don't actually understand who is the person of the other side, like how, like what's their reputation, who they're connected to, which communities they're part of. And so having that information being kind of private, but also available in some summarized, you know, zero knowledge form that you can judge based on when you're connecting with people, when you're engaging with someone to prevent this kind of forms of, there is actually scams happening.

Starting point is 00:57:01 Like people are trying, like even with a chain fund, we are open for volunteers who are helping the ground, but we're doing like deep KYC with like proof of location. And we keep actually finding people who are trying to scam this, right? And so actually building out a kind of working KYC, kind of not KYC, but actually a reputation system that works beyond just kind of basic identity, but actually, like, you know, what are the things that you've done already? What are the things that's kind of positive that you bring to the world? Who are the other friends who are we working with communities that you're participating in? Kind of encompassing that into some form that others can work on and judge on when they're engaging

Starting point is 00:57:43 with you is super important. I think like there's something that, like, I'm excited about. again after after we hopefully get into a stable state and start rebuilding to start engaging in. Yeah, I actually just did an interview. I have this new like premium offering where people can subscribe and they get additional content. And I just didn't interview with a project called Galaxy. And they're actually doing just what you're talking about. So it was a very interesting interview. It sort of, you know, made you realize kind of finally how because it's long been promised

Starting point is 00:58:15 that blockchain technology could be applied. to identity and reputation. But yeah, this is one project that is kind of working on that. George, did you want to add anything on this airdrop or even the subsequent NFT that they announced they were going to drop? Yeah, I mean, I've been so kind of focusing on the fundraising efforts and kind of evacuating, you know,

Starting point is 00:58:38 friends and relatives from Chernego in Kharkoff. I saw that in the news, but frankly speaking, It's been overshadowed by bombs dropping and maternity wars being blown up, getting help on a ground. But I'm sure once the dust settles, that will be one of the questions. And I think the team should provide the answer what was the reasoning behind and see what can be done to make people hold, so to speak. That would be my advice.

Starting point is 00:59:10 Yeah, my understanding it was just NFT. It wasn't supposed to be like a token or drop. It was supposed to be just NFT for people who have contributed to kind of showcase your support. Oh, okay. But I thought originally it was a token, and then they changed to NFTs. But you were saying that originally was NFTs? Yeah, I think that was just kind of, again, they're very overworked. That Twitter is, you know, like Twitter for that, but that is something kind of trendery that they're doing.

Starting point is 00:59:40 So I think they were just, I mean, they were trying to kind of, again, as my understanding, to highlight the people who have been contributing and helping that that should be in the goal not to create some kind of other stocking economics. Okay. At least as far as I understand. All right. Well, let's talk a little bit more about, you know, kind of the, what it is that the crypto community can do going forward.

Starting point is 01:00:05 You know, I feel like this was obviously in the news in a much bigger way, just even a little while ago, but I feel like there's been less news about it, at least in the crypto world. So what would you want for people to know or to have them do based off of listening to this episode? Yeah, I think there are few things. I mean, obviously beyond just kind of contributing to various of this efforts, depending on what kind of you align with most or what kind of you directly want to contribute to, I think there are, you know, looking for volunteers to help.

Starting point is 01:00:40 out with a lot of this. Like we're, if we're talking, you know, somebody who is in European Union, like, who people who can help with all these refugees and, and kind of people who have been displaced. Again, I mentioned away from Ukraine is a portal we're trying to build two kind of organize this information and options. And then beyond that, I think supporting Ukrainians, like honestly, even in kind of mental. like, you know, friendly way because like everyone having a hard time and they need, they need your kind of friendship as well. Yeah, I mean, I just want to thank everybody in a major way who has come in times of need. And I've been overwhelmed and my heart has been warmed by the help and assistance

Starting point is 01:01:36 from many and in some cases from unexpected places. There have been few surprises on the other side as well that have kind of stayed aloof and stayed, I wouldn't say indifferent, but not as active as I would have expected. But, you know, it is what it is. And, you know, 95% of people I reached out and discussions have came out in small way, in big way, in unexpected way.

Starting point is 01:02:04 And, you know, thanks. You know, it's the great karma for the world. And in times of this, I think when the world comes together to help each other and to give a caring hand is what it matters. And crypto community to large extent, all this infighting between various protocols sometimes and Twitter wars and stuff, you know, I came to witness that when there was a human tragedy and human need that people put aside, you know, all the this, all this and united together to do. And I want to thank everybody. Thank you for all the work

Starting point is 01:02:44 you're doing. And he actually has a great group on Telegram and so many participants. And every day there is soup kitchen or, you know, evacuating people and with pictures. And it's a very vibrant community. It's wonderful seeing people from all over the world coming. And, you know, here in Georgia, we're also putting together trucks of humanitarian stuff. and sending out. And we have thousands and thousands of Ukrainians that are coming that are being lodged free of charge and staying and, you know, sort of cared for. And I just want to thank everyone who has come in and you've done a great thing and

Starting point is 01:03:21 something to be proud of. So thank you. All right. So for people who want to get involved, what are all the handles and websites and groups that they should know about? Yeah. I mean, Unchain Fund, Unchained.com. This humanitarian fund, I mean, comeback alive is kind of what George has been working with.

Starting point is 01:03:45 You can also check out the Ministry of Digital Transformation, their website. And then away from Ukraine is for the kind of for helping people who have been, who are outside of Ukraine now and who need help because they've been kind of forcefully removed. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah, I mean, I think exactly what I said. I also pay now to many in United States that Ashton's and Milas GoFund campaign. I think it's a great effort and they're nearing their sort of a target.

Starting point is 01:04:21 So that's, you know, it's a great way to get engaged. And in a couple of weeks' times, we'll announce the heroes of Ukraine Children's Fund. And, you know, I'll be more than happy to then promote and get, you know, get, you know, get crypto community engaged and continue sort of helping and, you know, doing good. Great. Well, thank you both so much for coming on Unchained. Thank you. Thanks so much, Laura. Thanks so much for joining us today. To learn more about George, Ilya, and their efforts in Ukraine, check out the show notes for this episode. Unchained is produced by me, Laura Shin,

Starting point is 01:04:57 with all from Anthony Yun, Daniel Ness, Mark Murdoch, Shishank, and CLK transcription. Thanks for listening. Thank you.

Unchained - Ukraine Has Received $150 Million in Crypto. Here’s How It Is Being Used - Ep.332

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.