Ukraine cancels plans to airdrop, issues NFTs

Ukraine has canceled plans to conduct an airdrop that was due on March 3rd.

The country's prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, said that the country had backtracked on the plan after careful consideration and is now looking to issue NFTs to support its military.

Airdrops usually give users free criptocurrency to push adoption. It was not clear what Ukraine intended to airdrop, and whether it would be a new criptocurrency issued by the state.

Fedorov has not revealed any details about the announced NFT project and it is unclear what form it will take.

According to Dune Analytics, the airdrop announcements made on Fedorov and Ukraine's official Twitter caused a surge in micro donations to the country from 0.01 ETH to 0.001 ETH.

Social media users started pointing out that the new donations were made by people trying to get eligible for the airdrop, with some labeling them as people who only care about money.

Some people think the microdonation surge is a sybil attack to game the airdrop and maximize airdrop rewards. Sybil attacks are when a single user makes multiple donations from different addresses to try and game the system.

Some people on various social media expressed disgruntlement after the airdrop was canceled, but most people don't care that they will not be rewarded for their donations.

More than $50 million was donated in a week.

Ukraine has raised more than $50 million in donations since the invasion began last week. Fedorov has been at the forefront of the country's campaign to raise support through cryptocurrencies and now NFTs.

Some people donated a NFT to a CryptoPunk NFT to the cause, while most of the donations are made in the digital currency. An ether-based group, Ukraine DAO, auctioned off an NFT of the country's flag for $6.75 million on March 2, making it one of the most expensive NFTs ever sold.

The national secrecy involved isn't sure how much money is going to be spent. Ukraine has said that its Defense Ministry is in charge of disbursing funds and is mainly using it to buy equipment for the military.

The country said that the transparent nature of the digital ledger makes it easy to see how the funds are being spent.