Ukraine Raises $100K By Selling Donated CryptoPunk NFT

In an exciting bit of recent news, the official crypto fund of Ukraine has just sold its CryptoPunk! The sale happened early on June 20th and notably, the CryptoPunk sold for a hefty 90 ETH sum – over $100K at current prices.

The story of Ukraine and CryptoPunk #5364

On March 2nd, about a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, an anonymous wallet donated CryptoPunk #5364 to Ukraine’s crypto wallet. Indeed, this is just one of many NFT and crypto donations that Ukraine received as the blockchain community rallied around the country.  To date, Ukraine has reportedly raised over $135 million in donations.

Now, the official Ukraine Crypto Fund has sold the CryptoPunk to a different anonymous buyer for 90 ETH. Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, tweeted about the NFT sale yesterday, June 20th. While the Punk in question was valued at a higher dollar amount before the recent market crash, this is clearly still a significant boost for the fund. By the same token, the sale was significantly above the current CryptoPunks floor price, which is sitting at 67.45 ETH.

To sum up, the crypto fund helps purchase essential, non-lethal items for Ukraine’s military. This includes things like bulletproof vests and medical supplies. Notably, while the government of Ukraine endorses the fund, it does not actually control the fund. In other words, the Ukraine government itself did not sell the CryptoPunk. Rather, the Ukrainian crypto exchange Kuna operates the treasury, funding the purchases by volunteers.

Naturally, attention on the conflict in Ukraine has dipped since the early days of the conflict. In any case, it’s certainly encouraging to see that the NFT space continues to find ways to support Ukraine.