Apr 21, 2023 08:55

Terraform Founder Do Kwon sits in 'Dangerous and Overcrowded' Montengro Prison....

Do Kwon, the founder of the now-defunct Terra USD (UST) and Luna (LUNA) cryptocurrencies, could face up to five years in a Montenegrin prison before being extradited to South Korea or the United States.

Kwon is currently under quarantine for COVID-19 and will soon be sharing a cell with other inmates in a Montenegrin prison, according to a report by a local lawyer.

Montenegro Prisons a 'Hell On Earth'...However, the prisons in Montenegro are notoriously overcrowded, and inmates are often subjected to aggressive treatment by prison staff.

Amnesty International has raised concerns about the conditions and rights of detainees in Montenegrin prisons, including the lack of independent investigations into ill-treatment.

The cell Kwon will be occupying is only 8 square meters and is usually filled with between 10 and 11 people, leaving no room for a bed.

Inmates are only allowed a 30-minute walk in the prison yard each day and can only purchase limited items like cigarettes and coffee.

Montenegro now the first of 3 nations that will need to take turns locking up Kwon...

Kwon's initial arrest in Montenegro was due to presenting false documents, is a crime that carries a penalty of up to five years.

While both South Korea and the United States have requested Kwon's extradition, Montenegro has yet to make a decision.

If Montenegro decides to pursue it, this could be the first of three nations aiming for him to serve time in their prisons.

---
Author: Mark Pippen
London News Desk 
Breaking Crypto News 

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Apr 28, 2023 04:15

Ukraine DAO Raised MILLIONS As Ukrainian Gov 'Supported' Charity - But Gov Officials Call Claim Weird', and Say DAO was 'NOT Endorsed'....

As Russia invaded Ukraine in February of last year, an organization called Ukraine DAO instantly surfaced as a charity ready to help those wanting to donate to Ukraine using crypto, promising 100% of donations would go to the cause.

UkraineDAO started off doing what they promised to do…

The organization’s first move was the auction of an NFT of the Ukrainian flag. Many in the crypto community shared this on social media, along with some high profile exposure from people like Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and Nadia Tolokonnikova of Russian Anti-Putin band Pussy Riot.

The NFT raised a total of $6.8 million worth of ETH at the time - and on-chain records show this being transferred to non-profit Ukrainian Military Support organization ‘Come Back Alive’ which helps supply equipment and training for Ukrainian soldiers.

Their verifiable donations include:

- 1550.5 ETH to Come Back Alive.

- 387.63 ETH to Ukraine Government.

- 190.49 ETH to OutRight Action International

- 4.43 ETH to Psychology for Human Rights

This totals approximately 2130 ETH verifiably donated. But the wallet data shows a total of 2468 ETH received.

So there’s a remaining 338 ETH with a current value approximately $640,300. Some of this sits unspent, some is accounted for, and some is accounted for but the way it was used is where conflict begins to arise.

Things got real nasty, real fast...

The first issue came to light when Nadia Tolokonnikova of Russian Anti-Putin band Pussy Riot, who initially endorsed the project, quit after learning that the promise of “100% of funds” being donated was untrue and project leader Alona Shevchenko had been taking a $5,000/month salary.

Alona responded showing how previously Nadia had given interviews where she was asked about when she ‘started the charity’ - she didn't, but instead of correcting the interviewer she went on to answer saying that her ‘first reaction’ to the news was to create the charity 'with a number of friends’.

This is the point where you start to get an awful feeling that both ‘sides’ in this battle are people you probably don’t want anything to do with.

Basically, Nadia absolutely did not create the DAO or come up with the idea to do one. This is extremely obvious from the fact that there are 5 leaders who each need to sign off anytime a transaction is made from the official wallet (multi-sig). Nadia’s role wasn’t important enough to even be one of those 5.

So Nadia seems to have used the situation for self-promotion and taken credit away from the actual creator, which seems to truly be Alona Shevchenko.

Alona shot back calling it another example of Russians stealing from Ukrainian...

But before you feel bad for her, she may be awful too.

You can still see the promise made on their official Twitter account that “100% proceeds go to support Ukrainians suffering for the war” - no room for confusion there .

While Alona is from Ukraine, she has been living in the UK for years before the war even started. When taking a look at her LinkedIn employment history, we see that she’s been employed in London-based companies since 2017 - clearly she does not qualify as one of the “Ukrainians suffering for the war” yet she took $5000 per month from the donated funds for things like rent and personal expenses.

Ukraine DAO also repeatedly stated they were “supported by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine” making them “the first DAO to have been endorsed at the state level”. That claim would later be called ‘weird’ when after catching the attention of Ukrainian news outlet Kiev Post, who asked the Ukrainian government about these claims, they were told “The Ministry of Digital Transformation has not endorsed Ukraine DAO” .

However, I should mention that the Ukrainian government was not saying ‘we have no idea who you’re talking about’ - because there is some kind of relationship between the two organizations.

A profile on Alona Shevchenko which highlights her co-founding Ukraine DAO appears on an official Ukrainian government website. However, when asked, Oleksandr Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of the program downplayed its importance only as 1 of nearly 300 pages for volunteers for a program to educate the public on crypto.

Ukrainian News Outlets Claim "around $700k" in Missing Donations - We've Located Approximately $400K Of It...

At today's ETH value it's somewhere closer to $640,300 ‘unaccounted’ for funds, some of which more accurately should be called ‘unexplained’ funds. Because we know where some of that is, we just don’t know why it’s there.

There’s what was sent to individuals - Alona’s $5000 monthly payments to herself is somewhere around $70,000 total now. There was another $34,013 sent to another co-founder of the charity, Matthew Bundy; we can’t imagine why unless donors are now paying his rent too.

Then we don’t know who this was intended for, but another transaction for approximately $155,000 was sent to a wallet controlled by Sam Bankman-Fried’s former exchange FTX shortly before everyone lost access to their funds, as far as we can tell it was still there when that happened.

Lastly, $156,461 still sits in the official wallet of the charity.

While the situation is much better than $700,000 missing, there's still a total around $200,000 gone from the charity's wallet but not listed as being spent anywhere - too much to go unanswered for.

So, Now What?

Thankfully this isn’t a situation where donations are still flowing into the charity, so even if the worst outcome is true and a large amount of funds were misused, that number isn’t growing, at least from Ukraine DAO.

However, the same group appears to be on to the next cause - launching Iran DAO whose Twitter profile states “providing resources for Iran’s women-led revolution.”

It began with a Tweet from UkraineDAO stating they are “working to set up IranianDAO.”

In Closing…

It’s important to note that we could only label some Ukrainian funds ‘unaccounted’ for - which is very different than labeling them ‘stolen’. However, I’d like every dollar from their previous charity to be accounted for before even considering supporting a new one.

Or should the funds that ended up in Alona’s hands for personal expenses be considered ‘stolen’? This is a grey area legally. If 100% of the funds were to go to ‘Ukrainians suffering from the war’, she is Ukrainian, and while she only experiences the war via online news and TV from her home in England, perhaps she found the images emotionally distressful, technically making her a ‘Ukrainian suffering from the war’.

Still, I feel confident that no one donated thinking any of their money was going to a Ukrainian, who hasn't lived in Ukraine for years, and is one of the people in a position of trust with access to the donated funds, would find a way to put some in her own pocket - technically legal or not. 

While the Ukrainian government’s resources are focused elsewhere, there is a group of citizens along with journalists from the Kiev Post who continue to demand full accounting of every donated dollar, as well as question the legality of some of the DAO’s controversial decisions.

They vow that when the war is over they will be pressuring the government to review any potential exploitation by those using their crisis for personal profit. 

The story may be far from over, but this is where things stand now.

-----------
Author: Ross Davis
Silicon Valley Newsroom
GCP | Breaking Crypto News

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Apr 29, 2023 12:35

Ukraine DAO Raised MILLIONS Claiming it was 'Supported' by Ukrainian Gov - But They Say DAO was 'NOT Endorsed'...

As Russia invaded Ukraine in February of last year, an organization called Ukraine DAO instantly surfaced as a charity ready to help those wanting to donate to Ukraine using crypto, promising 100% of donations would go to the cause.

UkraineDAO started off doing what they promised to do…

The organization’s first move was the auction of an NFT of the Ukrainian flag. Many in the crypto community shared this on social media, along with some high profile exposure from people like Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and Nadia Tolokonnikova of Russian Anti-Putin band Pussy Riot.

The NFT raised a total of $6.8 million worth of ETH at the time - and on-chain records show this being transferred to non-profit Ukrainian Military Support organization ‘Come Back Alive’ which helps supply equipment and training for Ukrainian soldiers.

Their verifiable donations include:

- 1550.5 ETH to Come Back Alive.

- 387.63 ETH to Ukraine Government.

- 190.49 ETH to OutRight Action International

- 4.43 ETH to Psychology for Human Rights

This totals approximately 2130 ETH verifiably donated. But the wallet data shows a total of 2468 ETH received.

So there’s a remaining 338 ETH with a current value approximately $640,300. Some of this sits unspent, some is accounted for, and some is accounted for but the way it was used is where conflict begins to arise.

Things got real nasty, real fast...

The first issue came to light when Nadia Tolokonnikova of Russian Anti-Putin band Pussy Riot, who initially endorsed the project, quit after learning that the promise of “100% of funds” being donated was untrue and project leader Alona Shevchenko had been taking a $5,000/month salary.

Alona responded showing how previously Nadia had given interviews where she was asked about when she ‘started the charity’ -  she didn't start it. But instead of correcting the interviewer she went on to answer saying that her ‘first reaction’ to the news was to create the charity 'with a number of friends’.

This is the point where you start to get an awful feeling that both ‘sides’ in this battle are people you probably don’t want anything to do with.

Basically, Nadia absolutely did not create the DAO or come up with the idea to do one. This is extremely obvious from the fact that there are 5 leaders who each need to sign off anytime a transaction is made from the official wallet (multi-sig). Nadia’s role wasn’t important enough to even be one of those 5.

So Nadia seems to have used the situation for self-promotion and taken credit away from the actual creator, which appears to truly be Alona Shevchenko.

Alona shot back calling it another example of Russians stealing from Ukrainian...

But before you feel bad for her, she may be awful too.

You can still see the promise made on their official Twitter account that “100% proceeds go to support Ukrainians suffering for the war” - no room for confusion there .

While Alona is from Ukraine, she has been living in the UK for years before the war even started. When taking a look at her LinkedIn employment history, we see that she’s been employed in London-based companies since 2017 - clearly she does not qualify as one of the “Ukrainians suffering for the war” yet she took $5000 per month from the donated funds for things like rent and personal expenses.

Ukraine DAO also repeatedly stated they were “supported by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine” making them “the first DAO to have been endorsed at the state level”. That claim would later be called ‘weird’ when after catching the attention of Ukrainian news outlet Kiev Post, who asked the Ukrainian government about these claims, they were told “The Ministry of Digital Transformation has not endorsed Ukraine DAO” .

However, I should mention that the Ukrainian government was not saying ‘we have no idea who you’re talking about’ - because there is some kind of relationship between the two organizations.

A profile on Alona Shevchenko which highlights her co-founding Ukraine DAO appears on an official Ukrainian government website. But when asked, Oleksandr Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of the program downplayed its importance only as 1 of nearly 300 pages for volunteers for a program to educate the public on crypto.

Ukrainian News Outlets Claimed "around $700k" - We've Located Approximately $400K Of It...

At today's ETH value it's somewhere closer to $640,300 ‘unaccounted’ for funds, some of which more accurately should be called ‘unexplained’ funds. Because we know where some of that is, we just don’t know why it’s there.

There’s what was sent to individuals - Alona’s $5000 monthly payments to herself is somewhere around $70,000 total now. There was another $34,013 sent to another co-founder of the charity, Matthew Bundy; we can’t imagine why unless donors are now paying his rent too.

Then we don’t know who this was intended for, but another transaction for approximately $155,000 was sent to a wallet controlled by Sam Bankman-Fried’s former exchange FTX shortly before everyone lost access to their funds, as far as we can tell it was still there when that happened.

Lastly, $156,461 still sits in the official wallet of the charity.

The situation is much better thann $700,000 missing, but there's still a total around $200,000 gone from the charity's wallet but not listed as being spent anywhere - which is still too much to go unanswered for.

So, Now What?

Thankfully this isn’t a situation where donations are still flowing into the charity, so even if the worst outcome is true and a large amount of funds were misused, that number isn’t growing, at least from Ukraine DAO.

However, the same group appears to be on to the next cause - launching Iran DAO whose Twitter profile states their goal of “providing resources for Iran’s women-led revolution.”

It began with a Tweet from UkraineDAO stating they are “working to set up IranianDAO.”

In Closing…

It’s important to note that we could only label some Ukrainian funds ‘unaccounted’ for - which is very different than labeling them ‘stolen’. However, I’d like every dollar from their previous charity to be accounted for before even considering supporting a new one.

Or should the funds that ended up in Alona’s hands for personal expenses be considered ‘stolen’? This is a grey area legally. If 100% of the funds were to go to ‘Ukrainians suffering from the war’, she is Ukrainian, and while she only experiences the war via online news and TV from her home in England, perhaps she found the images emotionally distressful, technically making her a ‘Ukrainian suffering from the war’.

Unfortunately I’m struggling to come up with a scenario that ends with these payments to herself turning out to be completely ethical. 

I’m confident that no one donated thinking any of their money was going to a Ukrainian, who hasn't lived in Ukraine for years, is one of the people trusted with access to the donated funds, finding a way to put some in her own pocket - technically legal or not. 

While the Ukrainian government’s resources are focused elsewhere, there is a group of citizens along with journalists from the Kiev Post who continue to demand full accounting of every donated dollar, as well as question the legality of some of the DAO’s controversial decisions.

They vow that when the war is over they will be pressuring the government to review any potential exploitation by those using their crisis for personal profit. 

The story may be far from over, but this is where things stand now.

UkraineDAO was contacted (via Twitter DM)  and invited to share any additional information on the topics mentioned here. If they choose to, we will include it with our reporting.

-----------
Author: Ross Davis
Silicon Valley Newsroom
GCP | Breaking Crypto News

Subscribe to GCP in a reader

Mar 24, 2023 12:35

After Insisting They Have The Wrong Person, Fingerprints CONFIRM Luna Founder Turned Fugitive Do Kwon ARRESTED!

Officials in Montenegro have arrested Luna founder Do Kwan. 

First detained when officials at the Podgorica airport noticed his false documents, the man in custody spent hours denying he was the South Korean fugitive, until South Korean officials provided fingerprint records that were used to confirm his identity. 

"The former 'cryptocurrency king' who is behind losses of more than 40 billion dollars, was detained at the Podgorica airport with falsified documents, and the same is claimed by South Korea, the USA and Singapore. We are waiting for official confirmation of identity" Tweeted Montenegro's Minister of Interior.

Then minutes before this story was published, Interpol confirmed to us that a positive ID has been made - the person in custody IS Do Kwon.

Along with him another man stating he was his 'assistant' going by the name 'Han' was also arrested, there is no word on the actual identity of this person. 

What's Next for the Luna Founder?

While charged with crimes in both the US and South Korea, US prosecutors have said that they will seek Kwon’s extradition to the United States where he is charged with 8 federal violations including securities fraud, wire fraud, commodities fraud, conspiracy, and market manipulation.

------- 
Author: Adam Lee 
Asia News Desk / Breaking Crypto News

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Mar 12, 2023 04:15

Silvergate's "Hand Was Forced" to Selling Crypto Securities to Cover Deposit Outflow...

 Wedbush Securities Managing Director of Equity Research David Chiaverini talks about Silvergate's collapse, stablecoins, and the current state of the cryptocurrency market.

Video courtesy of Yahoo Finance...

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Nov 24, 2024 04:15

Controversy Over 'Government Supported' Ukraine Crypto-Charity that Raised MILLIONS....

As Russia invaded Ukraine in February of last year, an organization called Ukraine DAO instantly surfaced as a charity ready to help those wanting to donate to Ukraine using crypto, promising 100% of donations would go to the cause.

UkraineDAO started off doing what they promised to do

The organizations first move was the auction of an NFT of the Ukrainian flag. Many in the crypto community shared this on social media, along with some high profile exposure from people like Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and Nadia Tolokonnikova of Russian Anti-Putin band Pussy Riot.

The NFT raised a total of $6.8 million worth of ETH at the time - and on-chain records show this being transferred to non-profit Ukrainian Military Support organization Come Back Alive which helps supply equipment and training for Ukrainian soldiers.

Their verifiable donations include:

- 1550.5 ETH to Come Back Alive.

- 387.63 ETH to Ukraine Government.

- 190.49 ETH to OutRight Action International

- 4.43 ETH to Psychology for Human Rights

This totals approximately 2130 ETH verifiably donated. But the wallet data shows a total of 2468 ETH received.

So theres a remaining 338 ETH with a current value approximately $640,300. Some of this sits unspent, some is accounted for, and some is accounted for but the way it was used is where conflict begins to arise.

Things got real nasty, real fast...

The first issue came to light when Nadia Tolokonnikova of Russian Anti-Putin band Pussy Riot, who initially endorsed the project, quit after learning that the promise of 100% of funds going to help those effected by the war untrue and project leader Alona Shevchenko had been taking a $5,000/month salary.

Alona responded showing how previously Nadia had given interviews where she was asked about when she started the charity, Nadia told the interviewer the she "along with a number of friends felt they had to do something when they learned the invasion had begun.  Alona seems to think Nadia was positioning herself in interviews to be seen as the main person behind it.

[This portion of the article has been updated] There are 5 leaders who all need to sign off anytime a transaction is made from the official wallet (multi-sig). We initially reported that Nadia was not one of those five people, therefore it appeared she was not among the original founders.

That was incorrect -  she no longer is one of the five required signatures, which is why we did not see her there when we looked. But at the beginning, she was.

John Caldwell was another one of the five, he currently runs another charitable DAO he co-founded with Nadia called Unicorn DAO. John provided evidence of earlier transactions showing Nadia's signature on them, and explained that once UkraineDAO distributed the majority of the funds, both he and Nadia moved on, explaining "on that list of transactions, on #44 Pussyriot.eth was removed, then 45 I removed myself" trusting that the remaining funds would continue to be distributed appropriately.

It's the management of those remaining funds that have some people concerned...

You can still see the promise made on their official Twitter account that 100% proceeds go to support Ukrainians suffering for the war - no room for confusion there .

While Alona is from Ukraine, she has been living in the UK for years before the war even started. When taking a look at her LinkedIn employment history, we see that shes been employed in London-based companies since 2017 - clearly she does not qualify as one of the Ukrainians suffering for the war yet she took $5000 per month from the donated funds for things like rent and personal expenses.

Ukraine DAO also repeatedly stated they were supported by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine making them the first DAO to have been endorsed at the state level. That claim would later be called weird when after catching the attention of Ukrainian news outlet Kiev Post, who asked the Ukrainian government about these claims, they were told The Ministry of Digital Transformation has not endorsed Ukraine DAO .

However, I should mention that the Ukrainian government was not saying we have no idea who youre talking about - because there is some kind of relationship between the two organizations.

A profile on Alona Shevchenko which highlights her co-founding Ukraine DAO appears on an official Ukrainian government website. But when asked, Oleksandr Bornyakov, Ukraines Deputy Minister of the program downplayed its importance only as 1 of nearly 300 pages for volunteers for a program to educate the public on crypto.

Ukrainian News Outlets Claimed "around $700k" - We've Located Approximately $400K Of It...

At today's ETH value it's somewhere closer to $640,300 unaccounted for funds, some of which more accurately should be called unexplained funds. Because we know where some of that is, we just dont know why its there.

Theres what was sent to individuals - Alonas $5000 monthly payments to herself is somewhere around $70,000 total now. There was another $34,013 sent to another co-founder of the charity, Matthew Bundy; we cant imagine why unless donors are now paying his rent too.

Then we dont know who this was intended for, but another transaction for approximately $155,000 was sent to a wallet controlled by Sam Bankman-Frieds former exchange FTX shortly before everyone lost access to their funds, as far as we can tell it was still there when that happened.

Lastly, $156,461 still sits in the official wallet of the charity.

The situation is much better thann $700,000 missing, but there's still a total around $200,000 gone from the charity's wallet but not listed as being spent anywhere - which is still too much to go unanswered for.

So, Now What?

Thankfully this isnt a situation where donations are still flowing into the charity, so even if the worst outcome is true and a large amount of funds were misused, that number isnt growing, at least from Ukraine DAO.

However, the same group appears to be on to the next cause - launching Iran DAO whose Twitter profile states their goal of providing resources for Irans women-led revolution.

It began with a Tweet from UkraineDAO stating they are working to set up IranianDAO.

In Closing

Its important to note that we could only label some Ukrainian funds unaccounted for - which is very different than labeling them stolen. However, Id like every dollar from their previous charity to be accounted for before even considering supporting a new one.

Or should the funds that ended up in Alonas hands for personal expenses be considered stolen? This is a grey area legally. If 100% of the funds were to go to Ukrainians suffering from the war, she is Ukrainian, and while she only experiences the war via online news and TV from her home in England, perhaps she found the images emotionally distressful, technically making her a Ukrainian suffering from the war.

Unfortunately Im struggling to come up with a scenario that ends with these payments to herself turning out to be completely ethical. 

Im confident that no one donated thinking any of their money was going to a Ukrainian, who hasn't lived in Ukraine for years, is one of the people trusted with access to the donated funds, finding a way to put some in her own pocket - technically legal or not. 

While the Ukrainian governments resources are focused elsewhere, there is a group of citizens along with journalists from the Kiev Post who continue to demand full accounting of every donated dollar, as well as question the legality of some of the DAOs controversial decisions.

They vow that when the war is over they will be pressuring the government to review any potential exploitation by those using their crisis for personal profit. 

The story may be far from over, but this is where things stand now.

UkraineDAO was contacted (via Twitter DM)  and invited to share any additional information on the topics mentioned here. If they choose to, we will include it with our reporting.

-----------
Author: Ross Davis
Silicon Valley Newsroom
GCP | Breaking Crypto News

Subscribe to GCP in a reader

May 03, 2023 04:15

[Updated] Ukraine DAO Raised MILLIONS Claiming it was 'Supported' by Ukrainian Gov - But They Say DAO was 'NOT Endorsed'...

As Russia invaded Ukraine in February of last year, an organization called Ukraine DAO instantly surfaced as a charity ready to help those wanting to donate to Ukraine using crypto, promising 100% of donations would go to the cause.

UkraineDAO started off doing what they promised to do…

The organization’s first move was the auction of an NFT of the Ukrainian flag. Many in the crypto community shared this on social media, along with some high profile exposure from people like Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and Nadia Tolokonnikova of Russian Anti-Putin band Pussy Riot.

The NFT raised a total of $6.8 million worth of ETH at the time - and on-chain records show this being transferred to non-profit Ukrainian Military Support organization ‘Come Back Alive’ which helps supply equipment and training for Ukrainian soldiers.

Their verifiable donations include:

- 1550.5 ETH to Come Back Alive.

- 387.63 ETH to Ukraine Government.

- 190.49 ETH to OutRight Action International

- 4.43 ETH to Psychology for Human Rights

This totals approximately 2130 ETH verifiably donated. But the wallet data shows a total of 2468 ETH received.

So there’s a remaining 338 ETH with a current value approximately $640,300. Some of this sits unspent, some is accounted for, and some is accounted for but the way it was used is where conflict begins to arise.

Things got real nasty, real fast...

The first issue came to light when Nadia Tolokonnikova of Russian Anti-Putin band Pussy Riot, who initially endorsed the project, quit after learning that the promise of “100% of funds” going to help those effected by the war untrue and project leader Alona Shevchenko had been taking a $5,000/month salary.

Alona responded showing how previously Nadia had given interviews where she was asked about when she ‘started the charity, Nadia told the interviewer the she "along with a number of friends’ felt they had to do something when they learned the invasion had begun.  Alona seems to think Nadia was positioning herself in interviews to be seen as the main person behind it.

[This portion of the article has been updated] There are 5 leaders who all need to sign off anytime a transaction is made from the official wallet (multi-sig). We initially reported that Nadia was not one of those five people, therefore it appeared she was not among the original founders.

That was incorrect -  she no longer is one of the five required signatures, which is why we did not see her there when we looked. But at the beginning, she was.

John Caldwell was another one of the five, he currently runs another charitable DAO he co-founded with Nadia called Unicorn DAO. John provided evidence of earlier transactions showing Nadia's signature on them, and explained that once UkraineDAO distributed the majority of the funds, both he and Nadia moved on, explaining "on that list of transactions, on #44 Pussyriot.eth was removed, then 45 I removed myself" trusting that the remaining funds would continue to be distributed appropriately.

It's the management of those remaining funds that have some people concerned...

You can still see the promise made on their official Twitter account that “100% proceeds go to support Ukrainians suffering for the war” - no room for confusion there .

While Alona is from Ukraine, she has been living in the UK for years before the war even started. When taking a look at her LinkedIn employment history, we see that she’s been employed in London-based companies since 2017 - clearly she does not qualify as one of the “Ukrainians suffering for the war” yet she took $5000 per month from the donated funds for things like rent and personal expenses.

Ukraine DAO also repeatedly stated they were “supported by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine” making them “the first DAO to have been endorsed at the state level”. That claim would later be called ‘weird’ when after catching the attention of Ukrainian news outlet Kiev Post, who asked the Ukrainian government about these claims, they were told “The Ministry of Digital Transformation has not endorsed Ukraine DAO” .

However, I should mention that the Ukrainian government was not saying ‘we have no idea who you’re talking about’ - because there is some kind of relationship between the two organizations.

A profile on Alona Shevchenko which highlights her co-founding Ukraine DAO appears on an official Ukrainian government website. But when asked, Oleksandr Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of the program downplayed its importance only as 1 of nearly 300 pages for volunteers for a program to educate the public on crypto.

Ukrainian News Outlets Claimed "around $700k" - We've Located Approximately $400K Of It...

At today's ETH value it's somewhere closer to $640,300 ‘unaccounted’ for funds, some of which more accurately should be called ‘unexplained’ funds. Because we know where some of that is, we just don’t know why it’s there.

There’s what was sent to individuals - Alona’s $5000 monthly payments to herself is somewhere around $70,000 total now. There was another $34,013 sent to another co-founder of the charity, Matthew Bundy; we can’t imagine why unless donors are now paying his rent too.

Then we don’t know who this was intended for, but another transaction for approximately $155,000 was sent to a wallet controlled by Sam Bankman-Fried’s former exchange FTX shortly before everyone lost access to their funds, as far as we can tell it was still there when that happened.

Lastly, $156,461 still sits in the official wallet of the charity.

The situation is much better thann $700,000 missing, but there's still a total around $200,000 gone from the charity's wallet but not listed as being spent anywhere - which is still too much to go unanswered for.

So, Now What?

Thankfully this isn’t a situation where donations are still flowing into the charity, so even if the worst outcome is true and a large amount of funds were misused, that number isn’t growing, at least from Ukraine DAO.

However, the same group appears to be on to the next cause - launching Iran DAO whose Twitter profile states their goal of “providing resources for Iran’s women-led revolution.”

It began with a Tweet from UkraineDAO stating they are “working to set up IranianDAO.”

In Closing…

It’s important to note that we could only label some Ukrainian funds ‘unaccounted’ for - which is very different than labeling them ‘stolen’. However, I’d like every dollar from their previous charity to be accounted for before even considering supporting a new one.

Or should the funds that ended up in Alona’s hands for personal expenses be considered ‘stolen’? This is a grey area legally. If 100% of the funds were to go to ‘Ukrainians suffering from the war’, she is Ukrainian, and while she only experiences the war via online news and TV from her home in England, perhaps she found the images emotionally distressful, technically making her a ‘Ukrainian suffering from the war’.

Unfortunately I’m struggling to come up with a scenario that ends with these payments to herself turning out to be completely ethical. 

I’m confident that no one donated thinking any of their money was going to a Ukrainian, who hasn't lived in Ukraine for years, is one of the people trusted with access to the donated funds, finding a way to put some in her own pocket - technically legal or not. 

While the Ukrainian government’s resources are focused elsewhere, there is a group of citizens along with journalists from the Kiev Post who continue to demand full accounting of every donated dollar, as well as question the legality of some of the DAO’s controversial decisions.

They vow that when the war is over they will be pressuring the government to review any potential exploitation by those using their crisis for personal profit. 

The story may be far from over, but this is where things stand now.

UkraineDAO was contacted (via Twitter DM)  and invited to share any additional information on the topics mentioned here. If they choose to, we will include it with our reporting.

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Author: Ross Davis
Silicon Valley Newsroom
GCP | Breaking Crypto News

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May 17, 2023 04:15

[Updated] Controversy Over 'Government Supported' Ukraine Crypto-Charity that Raised MILLIONS....

As Russia invaded Ukraine in February of last year, an organization called Ukraine DAO instantly surfaced as a charity ready to help those wanting to donate to Ukraine using crypto, promising 100% of donations would go to the cause.

UkraineDAO started off doing what they promised to do…

The organization’s first move was the auction of an NFT of the Ukrainian flag. Many in the crypto community shared this on social media, along with some high profile exposure from people like Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and Nadia Tolokonnikova of Russian Anti-Putin band Pussy Riot.

The NFT raised a total of $6.8 million worth of ETH at the time - and on-chain records show this being transferred to non-profit Ukrainian Military Support organization ‘Come Back Alive’ which helps supply equipment and training for Ukrainian soldiers.

Their verifiable donations include:

- 1550.5 ETH to Come Back Alive.

- 387.63 ETH to Ukraine Government.

- 190.49 ETH to OutRight Action International

- 4.43 ETH to Psychology for Human Rights

This totals approximately 2130 ETH verifiably donated. But the wallet data shows a total of 2468 ETH received.

So there’s a remaining 338 ETH with a current value approximately $640,300. Some of this sits unspent, some is accounted for, and some is accounted for but the way it was used is where conflict begins to arise.

Things got real nasty, real fast...

The first issue came to light when Nadia Tolokonnikova of Russian Anti-Putin band Pussy Riot, who initially endorsed the project, quit after learning that the promise of “100% of funds” going to help those effected by the war untrue and project leader Alona Shevchenko had been taking a $5,000/month salary.

Alona responded showing how previously Nadia had given interviews where she was asked about when she ‘started the charity, Nadia told the interviewer the she "along with a number of friends’ felt they had to do something when they learned the invasion had begun.  Alona seems to think Nadia was positioning herself in interviews to be seen as the main person behind it.

[This portion of the article has been updated] There are 5 leaders who all need to sign off anytime a transaction is made from the official wallet (multi-sig). We initially reported that Nadia was not one of those five people, therefore it appeared she was not among the original founders.

That was incorrect -  she no longer is one of the five required signatures, which is why we did not see her there when we looked. But at the beginning, she was.

John Caldwell was another one of the five, he currently runs another charitable DAO he co-founded with Nadia called Unicorn DAO. John provided evidence of earlier transactions showing Nadia's signature on them, and explained that once UkraineDAO distributed the majority of the funds, both he and Nadia moved on, explaining "on that list of transactions, on #44 Pussyriot.eth was removed, then 45 I removed myself" trusting that the remaining funds would continue to be distributed appropriately.

It's the management of those remaining funds that have some people concerned...

You can still see the promise made on their official Twitter account that “100% proceeds go to support Ukrainians suffering for the war” - no room for confusion there .

While Alona is from Ukraine, she has been living in the UK for years before the war even started. When taking a look at her LinkedIn employment history, we see that she’s been employed in London-based companies since 2017 - clearly she does not qualify as one of the “Ukrainians suffering for the war” yet she took $5000 per month from the donated funds for things like rent and personal expenses.

Ukraine DAO also repeatedly stated they were “supported by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine” making them “the first DAO to have been endorsed at the state level”. That claim would later be called ‘weird’ when after catching the attention of Ukrainian news outlet Kiev Post, who asked the Ukrainian government about these claims, they were told “The Ministry of Digital Transformation has not endorsed Ukraine DAO” .

However, I should mention that the Ukrainian government was not saying ‘we have no idea who you’re talking about’ - because there is some kind of relationship between the two organizations.

A profile on Alona Shevchenko which highlights her co-founding Ukraine DAO appears on an official Ukrainian government website. But when asked, Oleksandr Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of the program downplayed its importance only as 1 of nearly 300 pages for volunteers for a program to educate the public on crypto.

Ukrainian News Outlets Claimed "around $700k" - We've Located Approximately $400K Of It...

At today's ETH value it's somewhere closer to $640,300 ‘unaccounted’ for funds, some of which more accurately should be called ‘unexplained’ funds. Because we know where some of that is, we just don’t know why it’s there.

There’s what was sent to individuals - Alona’s $5000 monthly payments to herself is somewhere around $70,000 total now. There was another $34,013 sent to another co-founder of the charity, Matthew Bundy; we can’t imagine why unless donors are now paying his rent too.

Then we don’t know who this was intended for, but another transaction for approximately $155,000 was sent to a wallet controlled by Sam Bankman-Fried’s former exchange FTX shortly before everyone lost access to their funds, as far as we can tell it was still there when that happened.

Lastly, $156,461 still sits in the official wallet of the charity.

The situation is much better thann $700,000 missing, but there's still a total around $200,000 gone from the charity's wallet but not listed as being spent anywhere - which is still too much to go unanswered for.

So, Now What?

Thankfully this isn’t a situation where donations are still flowing into the charity, so even if the worst outcome is true and a large amount of funds were misused, that number isn’t growing, at least from Ukraine DAO.

However, the same group appears to be on to the next cause - launching Iran DAO whose Twitter profile states their goal of “providing resources for Iran’s women-led revolution.”

It began with a Tweet from UkraineDAO stating they are “working to set up IranianDAO.”

In Closing…

It’s important to note that we could only label some Ukrainian funds ‘unaccounted’ for - which is very different than labeling them ‘stolen’. However, I’d like every dollar from their previous charity to be accounted for before even considering supporting a new one.

Or should the funds that ended up in Alona’s hands for personal expenses be considered ‘stolen’? This is a grey area legally. If 100% of the funds were to go to ‘Ukrainians suffering from the war’, she is Ukrainian, and while she only experiences the war via online news and TV from her home in England, perhaps she found the images emotionally distressful, technically making her a ‘Ukrainian suffering from the war’.

Unfortunately I’m struggling to come up with a scenario that ends with these payments to herself turning out to be completely ethical. 

I’m confident that no one donated thinking any of their money was going to a Ukrainian, who hasn't lived in Ukraine for years, is one of the people trusted with access to the donated funds, finding a way to put some in her own pocket - technically legal or not. 

While the Ukrainian government’s resources are focused elsewhere, there is a group of citizens along with journalists from the Kiev Post who continue to demand full accounting of every donated dollar, as well as question the legality of some of the DAO’s controversial decisions.

They vow that when the war is over they will be pressuring the government to review any potential exploitation by those using their crisis for personal profit. 

The story may be far from over, but this is where things stand now.

UkraineDAO was contacted (via Twitter DM)  and invited to share any additional information on the topics mentioned here. If they choose to, we will include it with our reporting.

-----------
Author: Ross Davis
Silicon Valley Newsroom
GCP | Breaking Crypto News

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