Dogecoin, the dog-themed memecoin has joined other popular cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Bitcoin, Polkadot, Tether and Solana, which are currently being accepted as donation by the war-torn Ukraine.
Ukraine has announced that the country will now also accept crypto donations in Dogecoin (DOGE) from the people supporting its cause against the ongoing war with Russia.
Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation and Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov took to Twitter to announce the news on Wed, Mar. 2, morning. He also included the official DOGE wallet address of the country, that should be used to send the donations. He said in the tweet, “Now even meme can support our army and save lives from Russian invaders.”
While in the initial donation announcement, Ukraine had only included Tether (USDT), Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) cryptocurrencies for war-relief donation purposes, it lately added Polkadot (DOT), Solana (SOL) and now Dogecoin (DOGE) to that list.
Crypto donations have so far brought in over $40 million into the country. The initiative received further boost after Ukraine announced the possibility of conducting an airdrop for its donors. However, per the latest update, the airdrop has been cancelled in favour of an NFT collection to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Dogecoin was trading at $0.126 at press time, as per data obtained from CoinMarketcap. In comparison Russian Ruble was worth $0.0091, valued much lower than the dog-themed memecoin, a fact also highlighted by the Ukraine Vice PM in the tweet. This is amid the growing sanctions on Russia as well as disconnection of the country’s banking system from the SWIFT global payments network.
Shout-out to Elon Musk and Billy Markus for help
Fedorov tagged two prominent global figures in the said tweet. He seeked support from Billy Markus, Dogecoin’s creator, who goes by the pseudonym Shibetoshi Nakamoto, and tech billionaire Elon Musk who calls himself ‘The Dogefather’ and has time and again spoken favorably of the memecoin.
While the Dogecoin founder responded to Fedorov’s call via a tweet, stating that he had indeed sent some DOGE for the relief efforts, Elon Musk is yet to respond. Markus tweeted, “Dogecoin folks aren’t usually rich and dogecoin itself is generally used for small transactions, but we are a caring and passionate bunch. Those who want to help will offer what they can ~ I hope the country can heal and rebuild stronger after all of this.”
Ukraine’s official DOGE wallet had witnessed more than 1,500 donations of 640,712 DOGE ($80,729) in total, at the time of writing.
