The Ukraine government had announced an airdrop through a tweet on Thursday. The tweet prompted thousands of donations. However, soon after Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted that the airdrop was cancelled, and instead, the government would be releasing NFTs to support Ukrainian armed forces defending the country against Russian invasion.

“After careful consideration, we decided to cancel airdrop. Every day there are more and more people willing to help Ukraine to fight back the aggression. Instead, we will announce NFTs to support Ukrainian Armed Forces soon. We DO NOT HAVE any plans to issue any fungible tokens,” Fedorov tweeted on Thursday.

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

— Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) March 3, 2022

An airdrop is a promotional tool through which cryptocurrencies can be directly transferred to the wallets of multiple users. The Ukrainian government had announced a plan to reward donors with tokens for their donations. Following the announcement, microdonations worth 30 cents to 30 dollars in Ethereum flooded the blockchain. Ukraine gained $40 million in donations, according to Coindesk.

However, shortly before the airdrop’s release at 6 pm on Thursday, a scammer sent free “Peaceful World” tokens to wallets of users and made it seem as if they had come from the Ukrainian government’s official Ethereum wallet. The spoof tokens quickly reached $500,000 in trading volume on the crypto exchange Uniswap.

Later, Etherscan, which tracks blockchain transactions, labelled the Peaceful World tokens as spam, as per a CoinDesk report. The announcement to cancel the airdrop project came hours after this.

Crypto has become a positive tool for Ukraine to receive support amid its ongoing war with Russia. The official Twitter handle of the government has posted wallet addresses to crypto donations in Bitcoin, Ether, and the stablecoin USDT, which is tied to the value of the US dollar.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has advanced, and major cities of Ukraine are suffering heavy shelling. Casualties are multiplying and lakhs of citizens have already fled the country.

The second round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials ended with the two sides agreeing to establish humanitarian corridors for the safe evacuation of civilians trapped in the crossfire. In this situation, the Ukrainian government is seeking support from all channels possible.

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(Edited by : Thomas Abraham)

First Published:Mar 4, 2022 1:21 PM IST