The Russia-Ukraine Conflict Shows the Power of DAOs & NFTs
As observed last week, the crypto news cycle was again dominated by Russia’s war on Ukraine this week. Bitcoin suffered the repercussions of the conflict.
On Monday, Bitcoin prices dropped to $37,500, but this wave didn’t crest as a sudden midweek rally pulled the price back up to almost $40,000.
As of today, the surges in Bitcoin’s highs and lows have almost leveled out. The week ended with the prices going up by 0.78%. Ethereum, however, fell by 4.3% over the past seven days and hit $2,670.
Despite the bearish wind blowing through the crypto market, the total market capitalization went down by 2.1% overnight.
The popular coins faced no significant losses though. Algorand experienced a 9% decline which was trading around $0.77 at the time of this writing.
A couple of tokens surged over the last seven days. NEAR Protocol went up by 13% to trade at $10.43, whereas Terra’s LUNA hit $86 which was a 14% rise.
Litecoin has risen by 0.86% in the last 24 hours, while Tether has declined by 0.19%.
$6.75M in Ethereum for Ukraine
In the realm of all these fluctuations, Ukraine received $57 million worth of donations in cryptocurrency, as aid for the country’s defense against Russia.
According to the New York Times, this amount represents just “a drop in the bucket” in terms of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But it’s actually not a small amount in any context, and is a $57 million fund that Ukraine is pleased to have received.
These crypto donations include funds gathered from DAOs and NFT sales. The move has clearly shown how strongly the Web3 community can be driven around a cause.
Out of the total amount, $6.75 million in Ethereum has come from Ukraine DAO, which is a large, decentralized organization.
The company was formulated by the band Pussy Riot’s founder, and raised its funds by putting a simple NFT of the Ukraine flag on sale. The whole event has distinctly demonstrated the power of DAOs and NFTs.
The Reputation of DAOs
DAOs could probably take help in building a positive reputation out of this incident.
The mainstream fascination of DAOs previously dropped drastically around ConstitionDAO, when over $40 million was raised but it failed to attain the price. A Wall Street titan swooped in and swallowed the price for himself.
The press treatment of DAOs has been kind of a mockery ever since. The reputation got even worse when one DAO bought the “Dune Bible”, which was a script written for a “Dune” movie that was never filmed.
DAO mistakenly assumed at the time that possessing the physical document would allow them to have IP rights to its content.
This was gleefully covered in the press with mocking headlines, such as “Crypto Losers Buy Copy of Jodorowsky’s Dune! They Have Played Themselves!”
DAOs do have certain design flaws. They are often described as online platforms with a wallet.
Although the description is quite accurate, it also reveals why it is difficult to believe that DAOs are the future of businesses, as advocates insist.
While crypto enthusiasts love the likes of leaderless organizations, some companies do need leaders, plus a proper hierarchy and a board of directors, in order to monitor their operations.
Hence, the concept of a decentralized and autonomous organization is quite a misnomer.
But what also needs to be noted here is that when DAOs first started, they were not really decentralized. For anything to be decentralized, it first needs to be created, and then only it can progressively decentralize at a later stage.
DAOs are not autonomous either. In fact, they are quite the opposite because they operate as a result of the voting of human beings.
Thus the term ‘autonomous’ should actually be reserved for the era of smart contracts themselves, not for DAOs.
DAOs At Their Best
When DAOs harness crypto traders around a legitimate movement, they are at their best. This is exactly what Ukraine DAO has done.
Ukraine DAO raised money very quickly, and sent it to the ones it was meant for immediately. This had a fast-paced impact on the movement.
A Ukrainian activist in England, Alona Shevchenko, who built Ukraine DAO, stated, “This is exactly what DAOs are for.”
According to her, the objective of DAOs is to make positive changes in the real, offline world, by harnessing and leveraging the power of blockchain technology.
Cryptocurrency has indeed proven its worth and benefit in the context of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. The incident has highlighted the great benefit of digital currency of being able to be sent to any part of the world cheaply and quickly.
Karen is a senior technical writer and copywriter at Hypegrowth. Her area of expertize are social media apps and new media.
Steve specializes in cryptocurrency and finance. As a born researcher, he won’t leave any stone unturned when it comes to topics he covers.