The Ukrainian government is turning to the metaverse once again to help fund its fight in the war against Russia.
The country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, who previously tweeted out crypto wallet codes so Ukraine could accept donations in the form of Bitcoin and Ethereum, announced on the government is minting 54 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to raise awareness and cash to fight against invading Russian forces.
To facilitate the sales, Fedorov launched the Meta History: Museum of War NFT site, and buyers will be able to purchase their digital artwork from 5 p.m ET on Mar. 30.
The NFTs can be seen as a pseudo-war bond, where people can invest in the certificates of ownership for the digital assets as a debt-security.
It is Ukraine’s second modern war fundraising tactic since raising $50 million in cryptocurrency donations at the start of March.
But not only are the NFTs intended to raise funds, 100% of which, according to the website, will go directly to the official crypto-accounts of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine to support army and civilians, but will also bring to light Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Its mission statement is “to preserve the memory of the real events of that time, to spread truthful information among the digital community in the world and to collect donations for the support of Ukraine.
“We will never let any single day of this period disappear from the ledger of world history,” the website adds.
How much will they cost?
The project shows an image of a tweet made by an official source, overlaid on top of an illustration drawn by a Ukrainian NFT artist.
The collection is meant to document the first three days of the war from Feb. 24 to Feb. 26, with corresponding personal reflections made by artists.
Some of the tweets include Putin’s announcement launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, martial law being introduced in the country, the EU rolling out massive sanctions against Russia and calls from NATO to stop the “senseless war”.
The Ukrainian government will mint the NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, using a platform built by the company Fair.xyz.
It will sell each NFT for 0.15 ETH, or around $500, and buyers can then sell or auction the NFTs on secondary markets, which the Ukrainian government will also take a cut from.
The original NFT plan was announced by Digital Minister Fedorov on Mar. 3, where he announced that he would be rewarding crypto donors with an airdrop—a free transfer of a digital asset—as a way to lure more people to donate cryptocurrencies into the Ukrainian government’s digital wallets.
But Fedorov went back on that decision last Thursday, cancelling the plans and instead deciding to issue NFTs in this auction instead.
