The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) non-fungible token (NFT) collection — one of the most recognised NFT collections in existence — has announced a donation of $1 million (roughly Rs. 7.5 crore) in Ether to Ukraine’s official Ethereum wallet address. The Twitter account of NFT Collection shared information with an Etherscan transaction link, which showed it sent ETH 388.999, inspired by contributions from its community members which, on its own, appears to have crossed the $1 million mark. According to blockchain security firm SlowMist, accumulated crypto donations to Ukraine’s cause are now close to $70 million (roughly Rs. 540 crore).
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine over the past couple of weeks has inspired support across the globe, from dozens of other nations to scores of anonymous crypto traders. Along with conventional military aid, Ukraine has received millions in crypto donations since the war started.
The majority of the donations stem from a tweet by the Ukrainian government asking for donations of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, and Polkadot. The Ukrainian government has since expanded the number of cryptocurrencies it is accepting for donations to include Dogecoin, TRON, Solana, and NFTs.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) community was quick to respond too and being one of the first NFT collections to reach a minimum value of over 50 ETH — or a minimum “buy now” price per NFT — a number of BAYC have hopped on and donated their high-value NFTs to Ukraine’s official ETH wallet.
According to OpenSea’s statistics, the BAYC is now the second-largest NFT collection of all time, with over 417,000 ETH (roughly $1 billion or Rs. 7,685 crore) in secondary sales.
The BAYC donation to Ukraine follows a host of other players from Web3 communities — from DAOs to memecoin holders to NFT collections — announcing projects and activities aimed at assisting with humanitarian relief efforts in Ukraine.
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