Uniswap Labs, operator of the world’s largest decentralized exchange protocol, said it had built a platform that would allow users to quickly donate any ERC-20 tokens to Ukraine.
Donate any ETH token now
Uniswap shared the platform in a tweet, linking it to Ukraine’s official account. The government had shared an official wallet address last week, accepting donations in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether.
1/ To ensure that everyone who wants to donate ERC-20 tokens to the Ukrainian government 🇺🇦 can do so, we built an interface that swaps any token for ETH and then sends it directly to the Ukrainian government in a single transaction.https://t.co/3zuJLpmWNQ https://t.co/Fg3HSdbNSF
— Uniswap Labs 🦄 (@Uniswap) March 1, 2022
Uniswap, which protocol has a market value of more than $7 billion, said the platform allows users to convert any ERC-20 tokens to Ethereum and donate them to Ukraine with a few clicks.
The address shared by the Ukrainian government is a centralized exchange that appears to accept only USDT and ETH. We built this interface so anyone who wants to donate but holds other ERC-20 tokens can do so with one click.
-Uniswap
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ERC-20 is the most popular technical standard used for creating tokens and smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. Popular tokens that use the protocol include Loopring and Basic Attention Token.
Crypto donations to Ukraine soar
Uniswap’s move comes amid soaring crypto donations to Ukraine. What started off as a few millions in BTC to Ukraine armed forces surpassed $20 million after the government officially began soliciting crypto donations.
With electronic payments suspended in the country, crypto appears to be one of the few reliable ways to send financial aid to Ukraine.
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin was among the early proponents of crypto donations to the country, even publicly verifying the country’s wallet address.
Donations, adoption put crypto in the spotlight
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has served as a stage of sorts for crypto, as conventional financial systems were either sanctioned or taken down. Russian and Ukrainian citizens were seen piling into crypto as their respective currencies crashed, and, in Ukraine’s case, as financial systems went offline due to the invasion.
The deluge of crypto donations to Ukraine also allowed people from around the world to directly support the country, instead of through charity foundations or middlemen.
Amid all this, a healthy recovery in bitcoin also boosted optimism over crypto.
But speculation has also been rife over Russia possibly using crypto to bypass strict U.S. sanctions.
