Russian donation wallet research

Key insights

  • Ukraine legalized cryptocurrencies with the adoption of the law “On Digital Assets,” which led to the acceptance of crypto donations even at the state level.
  •  By March 2022, the total amount of cryptocurrency donations to Ukraine reached an all-time high of $100 million.
  •  Russian politicians, leaders of political parties, military journalists, and influencers also collect donations using Telegram to support Russian aggression on Ukrainian territory.
  •  Over 3,300 Telegram channels were analyzed, and it was possible to identify more than 350 addresses belonging to various exchanges that were used for this purpose.
  • The top five exchanges used for fundraising to finance Russian military aggression on the territory of Ukraine since 02/23/2022 are Huobi, Binance, Poloniex, 1inch exchange and Coinjar.

Donation is the keyword for Ukraine’s cryptocurrency world in 2022. The legalization of cryptocurrencies on the territory of Ukraine with the adoption of the law “On Digital Assets” contributed to the organization of the acceptance of donations, even at the state level. The total by March, 2022 added an all-time high of $100 million. Such responsiveness of the crypto community has become a source of help for Ukraine in times of crisis. But it is worth noting that Russians and organizations supporting the Russian Federation also regularly collect donations in support of Russian aggression on the territory of Ukraine. Basically, the collection initiative comes from politicians, leaders of political parties, military journalists and influencers. They use Telegram as a way to collect funds from subscribers and publish crypto wallet numbers, which they use to accumulate funds. After analyzing more than 3,300 such telegram channels, the Global Ledger team was able to identify more than 350 addresses belonging to various exchanges used for this purpose.

This made it possible to see the statistics of the distribution of incoming and outgoing transactions on exchanges for Bitcoin and Ethereum:

Let’s take a look at the top 5 exchanges used by donors and fundraisers since 02/23/2022:

  1. Huobi

Huobi opens up the list of exchanges. The GL research team was investigating the telegram channel https://t.me/MOOVeche, which belongs to the Russian interregional public organization “Veche.” During the investigation of the withdrawal of funds from the donation wallet, several more wallets belonging to this owner were discovered.

Main wallet for donations: 37H83MoupRuDHcyDc1rXXuTfWLbjBbM2EB (1)

Link to post with mentioned wallet: https://t.me/MOOVeche/1028 

Additional wallets:

The recipient of all transactions from the main wallet for donation is the address 33izKLJLhR1njzFbLAz1KSTc2QPhUbUJxe (7), which in turn also sent all funds to address 1L15W6b9vkxV81xW5HDtmMBycrdiettHEL (8) belonging to the exchange Huobi.

As it turned out in the next investigation process, all donation funds were subsequently sent to the Huobi wallet, which at a certain point contained donations in the amount of about 81 BTC.

2. Binance

In connection with the fifth package of restrictive measures of the EU against Russia, Binance has imposed a restriction on the provision of services for citizens of Russia and individuals residing in Russia or legal entities registered in Russia. The restrictions affected accounts whose balance of cryptocurrency assets exceeded 10,000 euros. But this did not stop regular users from sending 24.20445939 BTС and 42.12295396 ETН in total to the fundraising wallets. 

The largest transaction was 35fcdde0335beee504fb3beebc9125df4d42034ee2528eda9f3f645d2f52caac from the address published on the blocked YouTube channel of Russian propagandist Anatoly Shariy to the address related to the Binance exchange. Transaction amount is 13.17239903 BTC

Main wallet for donations:

bc1q783jq08gj5udh7mygsfd29ve0n2lencx9d9qht

Link to the YouTube channel: https://web.archive.org/web/20220512122823/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA-7ybifSvE 

3. Poloniex

In third place sits the Poloniex exchange. A total of $153,744,3772 was sent from the wallets of this exchange in order to support the activities of the Russian army. 

The largest donation was sent from the exchange in the amount of 6.33 BTC. After conducting an investigation, the GL team was able to identify that this donation was sent to the 19F1RGfjnXjUByuMDxYLjj6keKjMvgYXaD wallet of the Binance exchange. This wallet is regularly mentioned in the telegram channel https://t.me/lobaev_vlad/3908, which is run by Vladislav Lobaev, CEO of the Russian arms company Lobaev Arms.

Main wallet for donations:

19F1RGfjnXjUByuMDxYLjj6keKjMvgYXaD

Link to post with mentioned wallet: 

https://t.me/lobaev_vlad/3908 (the post has been edited, but wallet is easy to find with a Google request, i.e., https://en.tgchannels.org/channel/lobaev_vlad?start=3909&lang=all) 

4. 1inch exchange

1inch exchange is a representative of decentralized exchanges in our list, which greatly facilitates the laundering of funds using smart contracts. 

Studying the activities of the telegram channel https://t.me/epoddubny, which is run by Evgeny Poddubny, a military reporter for the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, the GL was able to find out that the largest donation in the amount of 53.55736223 ETH was sent to wallet 0x47D9b99b239aEE283ba10d8D4D6c2269b22b5208 from 1inch Exchange in the transaction 0xd92d944eff96cdb88203289a8d87cf48ac34d58c7e5c3373a7070aaf4d176b06.

Main wallet for donations:

0x47D9b99b239aEE283ba10d8D4D6c2269b22b5208

Link to post with mentioned wallet: 

https://t.me/epoddubny/11059

5. Coinjar

The last exchange on our list is Coinjar, with a total donation of $42,695. 

This amount was collected by the channel Shout of Totalitarian Propaganda https://t.me/boris_rozhin, which is run by Boris Rozhin, an expert at the Center for Military-Political Journalism. 

Donations were sent in 18 transactions from Coinjar.com to wallets 3BfL985FDgADKwdvp9dnhRYBiRa25dvKSN and bc1q3pp7za3gjj6l92xg0tgzz93y0tdch4eh6mv7m4

Wallet 1:

3BfL985FDgADKwdvp9dnhRYBiRa25dvKSN

Link to post with mentioned wallet 1: 

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/55877

Wallet 2:

bc1q3pp7za3gjj6l92xg0tgzz93y0tdch4eh6mv7m4

Link to post with mentioned wallet: 

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/56252

Russian donations continue to be collected, and there are more and more sources every day. Many exchanges refused to block the accounts of ordinary users from Russia, arguing that the cryptocurrency is designed to expand financial opportunities, and not limit them. In addition, the position of the exchanges can even be called fair, because ordinary users should not be subject to restrictions due to the military actions of their government. But paying attention to the data provided, we can conclude that by sending donations, the ordinary population not only supports their government’s policy but also directly participates in it.