Ukraine has started auctioning a collection of NFTs as part of its crypto fund raising
Ukraine began auctioning a collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Friday in an extension to the cryptocurrency fundraising push, which Kyiv says has already collected more than $65 million for its war effort.
The ‘Meta History: Museum of War’ collection is a series of digital images – including silhouettes of warplanes, screengrabs of news reports and a cartoon-style image of an explosion – each marking a different day in the conflict.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation began appealing for donations in digital tokens such as bitcoin and ether three days after launching an invasion of Russia in what Moscow calls a “special military operation”.
According to a message on the archive’s website, the new NFT series was meant to “spread true information among the digital community in the world and collect donations to support Ukraine”.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a type of crypto asset that exploded in popularity last year. They use the technology behind bitcoin to record who owns a digital file, from an image to a video or piece of text.
Ukraine has so far bought supplies for its military with its crypto donations, including bulletproof vests, helmets, lunches and medicines, Ukraine’s deputy minister for digital transformation Alex Bornyakov said on Twitter this month.
NFTs are usually purchased with cryptocurrencies such as Ether. Ukraine’s NFTs will initially cost 0.15 Ether, or just over $475. According to the website, the funds will go directly to Kyiv’s digital crypto wallet.
The explosive growth in NFT sales has left many observers wondering why so much money is spent on items that don’t physically exist.
Nevertheless, they have become a popular fundraising tool in recent months, with groups of people pooling their crypto funds to buy NFTs to raise awareness of a specific cause.
