Devs Publish Bitcoin, Ethereum Donation Guidelines for Russians Who Support Ukraine

Ukrainian blockchain developers say they have created a web-based resource for Russians and Belarus-based individuals who want to make anonymous crypto donations to Ukraine-supporting funds.

The authors of the Russian-language web pages are Gleb Naumenko, who has been “working with the Bitcoin Core protocol since 2018, and the ethereum (ETH) expert Mikerah.

The authors wrote that many Russians and Belarusians were “are afraid of being punished by their special services if their donations are noticed” – and gave a step-by-step breakdown of how individuals based in the two countries could send bitcoin (BTC), privacy tokens like monero (XMR) and ETH.

The authors wrote that donations in “other” altcoins were probably safe “because the FSB [Russia’s intelligence service] will not physically be able to spy on all of them.”

“It takes a lot of time and expertise,” to trace altcoin transactions, they remarked.

For bitcoin donations, the guide advises using new or refreshed receiving addresses to “prevent the FSB from easily understanding where your coins went.” It also advises using coin “mixing” tools such as the PayJoin “privacy improvement tool,” as well as the CoinJoin tools of wallets like Wasabi and Samurai.

Furthermore, it advises that would-be donors use “wallets that have minimal previous exposure.” Sending BTC received as a gift or mined tokens, it advises, makes transactions harder to monitor.

Different steps would help with donations to different crypto-accepting bodies allied with Ukraine, the developers noted.

They also added that would-be donors would be well-advised to use virtual private networks (VPNs), anonymity-focused web browsers such as Tor, as well as being sure to clear their tracks by clearing caches, using anonymous browser tabs, and deleting all apps after use.

They claimed that “buying and sending cryptoassets is probably one of the safest options” for those in Russia and Belarus who wanted to make financial contributions.

They advised:

“Try to buy [coins] without exposing your personal data such as your passport or phone. Disguise your appearance if you go to a [bricks-and-mortar] bureau de change. In the case of telephone verification, you can find single-use numbers on the internet.”

A number of Russian cities saw protests against the war over the weekend, with the police making over 4,300 arrests, per the protest monitoring group OVD-Info, Reuters reported. Russian state media reported lower figures of 3,500 – with the majority reportedly arrested in the capital Moscow.

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