After the Russia-Ukraine war started, cryptocurrency platform FTX partnered with Ukraine to receive donations in crypto to fund the war, according to CoinDesk. Now FTX is insolvent and all cryptos which have been donated to Ukraine are gone. Did this partnership exist only for the purpose of money laundering?

Here is some evidence:

FTX’s Ukrainian Connection

In March 2022, FTX was approached by Ukrainian officials who requested help to set up crypto donations to fund the war. Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of FTX, agreed and set up a donation portal on the FTX website. Businesses and citizens around the world could donate any amount of cryptocurrency to different wallet addresses. Ukraine promised to convert all cryptocurrencies into their local currency hryvnia and subsequently buy war equipment.

Estimates say that $200 million in donations were raised but from this $200 million only $22 million were officially used. This leaves the question where the other donations went…

Crypto Donations Go Missing

By early November, it was estimated that $200 million worth of cryptocurrencies had been donated to Ukraine through FTX. However, only $22 million of those funds were ever officially used to directly fund the war, according to Ukraine’s website. The remaining $178 million mysteriously disappeared, leading many to believe that the money had been laundered back to the United States.

This suspicion was further fueled by the fact that Sam Bankman-Fried is the second largest donor to the Democratic Party in the United States. Some believe that Bankman-Fried used his connections in Ukraine to funnel crypto donations back to himself and then used those funds to support the Democratic Party in the United States. However, there is no concrete evidence to support this claim.

What Happened to the Missing Crypto Donations?

The fate of the missing crypto donations remains a mystery. There is no concrete evidence of where those funds went or who they ended up benefiting. However, given the circumstances — FTX’s insolvency, Sam Bankman-Fried’s close ties to Ukraine, and the large amount of money involved — it’s not unreasonable to suspect that those funds may have been laundered back to the United States through illegal means. Only time will tell if we ever learn the truth about what happened to those missing crypto donations.