Polkadot’s Gavin Wood Donates $5 Million in DOT to Ukraine

• Polkadot founder Gavin Wood has followed through with a promise to donate $5 million to Ukraine
• The Ukraine Twitter page listed a DOT donation address and Wood handed over nearly 300,000 tokens
• This takes the total raised to over $51 million, but not all outlets are reporting this

Polkadot founder Gavin Wood has made good on a promise to make a big donation to Ukraine’s fight against Russia, giving $5 million in DOT after the state published a Polkadot address. Wood’s donation adds to the tens of millions already donated to Ukraine’s battle, which has become the de facto method by which well wishers have supported the nation’s cause. Despite this, some highly ranked politicians and mainstream media outlets are still focusing on the myth that Russia can use crypto to avoid sanctions.

Wood Makes Good on Ukraine Donation Promise

Wood tweeted on Sunday that he would donate $5 million in DOT if the official Ukraine Twitter account added a Polkadot address, a marketing strategy that drew ire from the community:

If you just convert and send funds without shilling DOT maybe you’ll get more respect.

— Heisenberg ⚛️ (@ShutenDoji20) February 27, 2022

Ukraine naturally acquiesced and yesterday posted a DOT donation address, with Wood following up on his promise and delivering 298,367 DOT tokens yesterday afternoon. The Ukraine Twitter feed responded with thanks to Wood’s donation, adding that more cryptocurrencies were coming soon:

The people of Ukraine fighting for our freedom are forever grateful to Gavin Wood @gavofyork for the generous donation of $5M of @Polkadot $DOT as promised publicly. Thank you from all of us here in Ukraine working for a peaceful future 🇺🇦

— Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) March 1, 2022

Wood’s donation has been augmented by a further 26,250 DOT from other donors, worth another half a million dollars on top. This takes the total so far raised in cryptocurrency for Ukraine to over $51 million, a staggering sum that shows how the cryptocurrency community can rally for a good cause.

Focus For Some is Still on Russian Sanctions

Unfortunately, certain mainstream media outlets and even politicians in high office have chosen to focus on the myth that Russia is using cryptocurrency to evade sanctions rather than the huge sums of money that have been raised, echoing agendas that were set years ago and that are clearly very hard to break.