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Bulletins

Ukraine canceled its crypto airdrop. It’s turning to NFTs instead.

The airdrop was meant to be a reward for those who made crypto donations.

Crypto coins

Ukraine would have been the first nation to conduct an airdrop for crypto donors.

Image: Protocol

Mykhailo Fedorov, the vice prime minister of Ukraine, announced on Thursday that Ukraine was canceling its plans for an airdrop, a project that would have provided its crypto donors free tokens as an incentive for more donations.



The airdrop had prompted an influx of microdonations, with 95% of donors contributing 0.001 ether or 0.01 ether with the expectation of getting a free token back. Some called the cancellation a rug pull, implying that Ukraine had somehow tricked donors with the promise of a token.

The cancellation followed an apparent attempt to spoof the promised token. An unknown entity minted a Peaceful World token with the symbol WORLD, which some users mistook as the intended Ukrainian airdrop. The official Ukraine crypto donation wallet appeared to hold almost 7 billion WORLD tokens at one point. The WORLD tokens have since been marked by Etherscan as coming from a problem address, indicating possible fraud.

Ukraine would have been the first nation to conduct an airdrop for crypto donors. El Salvador made a similar move last year when it airdropped $30 worth of bitcoin to every adult citizen who downloaded its government bitcoin wallet.

Lindsey Choo
Lindsey Choo is a former Protocol reporter covering fintech. She is a graduate of UC San Diego, where she double majored in communications and political science. She has previously covered healthcare issues for the Center for Healthy Aging and was a senior staff writer for The UCSD Guardian. She can be reached at lchoo@protocol.com.
cryptocurrencynftrussia-ukraine
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