Ukraine has received over $70 million in the form of cryptocurrencies since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, providing the nation with military equipment and humanitarian assistance. The figures came from a Feb. 24 report by blockchain data platform Chainalysis, which found the majority of the funds to have come in the form of Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC). ETH donors led the way with $28.9 million given, while donors of BTC and Tether (USDT) chipped in $22.8 million and $11.59 million respectively. Donations have also come in the form of nonfungible tokens (NFTs), such as UkraineDAO’s auction of a …

United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Gary Gensler has found a new audience for his crypto-skeptical pep talks — the United States Army. On Jan. 11 the U.S. Army hosted its first Twitter Space of 2023 with Gensler and SEC commissioner Caroline Crenshaw joining the discussion to provide financial advice on how and where U.S. soldiers should invest their money. https://t.co/oRjE3pDc8C — U.S. Army (@USArmy) January 11, 2023 Sergeant Lawrence Holmes noted “there are soldiers that look for those alternative investments [such as] crypto assets” asking the pair what risks there were to crypto investing. “It’s the Wild …

Kazakhstan is ready to legalize a mechanism for converting cryptocurrencies to cash if there is demand, said President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, per local news agency Informburo on Sept. 28. Speaking at the international forum Digital Bridge 2022, Tokayev emphasized that Kazakhstan aims to become an international leader in the field of digital technology, cryptocurrency ecosystem and regulated mining. He noted that the government of Kazakhstan has drafted amendments in national law to pilot a mechanism for converting crypto at the Astana International Financial Centre. “We are ready to go further. If this financial instrument shows its further relevance and security, it …

Half a year after the military junta in Myanmar revealed its plans to launch a digital currency, the country’s government, ousted in a coup in 2021, voices its own intention to launch one using frozen national funds. In a Sept. 6 interview with Bloomberg, the minister of planning of exiled Myanmar’s National Unity Government, Tin Tun Naing, asked for the “U.S. blessing” to use “virtually” the country’s reserves, frozen by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since Feb. 2021. The funds Naing mentions have been frozen on Singaporean, Thai and Japanese accounts and could amount to billions of dollars …

Ukrainian officials have used funds from the crypto donation platform launched by the government to purchase supplies for the country’s military amid its ongoing war with Russia. In a Friday tweet, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, announced that the country had purchased five all-terrain vehicles, which “will come in handy for a challenging environment” — possibly referring to conditions near the front lines with Russia or where roads have been damaged or destroyed. Funds for three of the ATVs originated from Aid for Ukraine, a platform the government launched in March that accepts crypto donations “to support people …

The United States Air Force has filed a trademark application hinting at the military branch potentially expanding into the metaverse. According to a Thursday application submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Department of the Air Force trademarked the word "SpaceVerse," defined as “a secure digital metaverse that converges terrestrial and space physical and digital realities and provides synthetic and simulated extended-reality (XR) training, testing and operations environments.” It’s unclear if the initiative is connected to the U.S. Space Force, which according to its website is “organized under” the Air Force, but operates as a “separate and distinct …

The Central Bank of Sudan (CBOS) cautioned the country’s citizens against dealing with “all types of cryptocurrencies” due to “the high risks” that they pose. This announcement came as a reaction to the increasing interest in digital assets among the country’s population, which has been facing three-digit inflation rates since the 2021 military coup. On March 27, the Sudan News Agency (SUNA) published a short announcement from the CBOS declaring that due to high risks, which include “financial crimes, electronic piracy and the risk of losing their value,” citizens are not advised to use cryptocurrencies of any sort. The CBOS …

The armed forces of Myanmar, which have been in control of the government since forcibly detaining many elected leaders in 2021, is reportedly planning to release a digital currency to help the local economy. According to a Thursday report from Bloomberg, Major General Zaw Min Tun said rolling out a digital currency would “help improve financial activities in Myanmar,” but military officials were undecided on whether to work with local companies or release the token on their own. Tun, the chief of the military government’s 'True News Information Team', acts as a spokesperson for the Myanmar army. The digital currency …

The United States military continues to explore blockchain technology to improve its processes. The U.S. Navy has signed a $1.5 million contract with Consensus Networks to develop a blockchain-enabled logistics system named HealthNet back in May. The project, built on IoT-focused blockchain IoTeX, is halfway complete, counting the days for its pilot scheduled for early 2022. According to the information shared with Cointelegraph, Consensus Networks aims to provide real-time monitoring and logistics for nearly 700,000 sailors and marines via the HealthNet platform. The developer picked the IoTex blockchain to meet the security and scalability requirements of the Navy. Nathan Miller, …

The United States-based blockchain startup Simba Chain, which provides technology for several U.S. defense organizations, raised fresh funds to scale the business and tap new opportunities like nonfungible tokens (NFTs). The $25 million Series A funding round was led by Valley Capital Partners with the participation of Notre Dame Pit Road Fund, Elevate Ventures and Stanford Law School Venture Fund, according to an official announcement. Simba Chain will use the new funding to scale several departments within the company and to dedicate resources to emerging trends like NFTs. The company aims to be the tech provider for business enterprises, academic …

A blockchain-based initiative from the United States Air Force will employ Constellation's Hypergraph Network to provide data security with the Department of Defense’s commercial partners. In a Thursday announcement, Constellation said it had been working with Kinnami Software Corporation to develop an end-to-end data security solution using blockchain encryption and distributed data management for the United States Transportation Command, Air Mobility Command’s 618th Air Operations Center, and a Civil Reserve Air Fleet partner. According to the platform, its goal is to securely exchange data with commercial partners on missions involving the operations of aircraft and ships under contract to the …

SIMBA Chain, a cloud-based smart contract platform, has been tasked with revamping the supply chain of the United States military after it received a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Office of Navy Research. The project will be responsible for developing a blockchain-based solution to enable demand sensing for critical military weaponry parts. Demand sensing is a forecasting technique used in supply chain logistics that processes information in real-time to accurately predict demand ahead of time. Work will reportedly focus on constructing a use case centered on the Boeing F/A-18 Hornet — a combat jet which had its first variant …