Ukraine war in Web3

the playing out of a war online and in web3

The ongoing and needless loss of life in Ukraine is not short of tragic. My heart goes out to them and I would urge all readers here to donate to Ukraine (more of that below). 

I have been thinking a lot about the role that the internet and web3 has played in this war. This is the first war that was predicted by the internet and then played out live on it and some of the major developments are taking place on Twitter.

When it comes to war there are 3 things that are vital to be successful if you are to win: 

1. Funding

2. Communication

3. Access

Funding

Ukraine has been given more funding in crypto than any single country or non-governmental organisation has given them. 

They raised $52mln (and counting) in funding thoughts this tweet

But it doesn’t just stop there. They have been able to accept funds in an array of currencies and NFTs thanks to the speedy work of the crypto community.  Whilst the UN has launched a large charity drive, they have only actually allocated $20mln of funding so far. 

Then Ukraine announced this

Now, this is something.  An airdrop is a free “gift” that has become a popular way to rewards supporters or a blockchain project. Because the wallet addresses of users of a project are publicly recorded on the blockchain, it is easy to send them something in return.   One of the most famous airdrops recently was ENS.  This was the Ethereum naming service where I bought my billynaveed.eth address. The name cost me $150 and ENS airdropped all those people who were early adaptors $2000 worth of ENS tokens that were governance tokens that would govern the future of the project.  

What will Ukraine do? It could be anything from a “receipt” a simple token to say thanks that one keep in their wallet or a token that gives you access to a community of other like-minded, Ukraine supporters that are looking to do good in the world. 

This to me is the true power of web3. An organising force, where blockchain ownership drives community that drives change. By giving a token to those that donated (proof of donation token) I can verify true supporters and bring them together to take more collective action. If you want to donate you can do by 6pm tonight Ukraine time and still get the airdrop. 

Communication

President Zelensky is quite rightly lauded as a hero and has brought global attention to the plight of Ukraine. He has done so with the deft use of social media and oratory. To deliver clear, sometimes heartbreaking speeches that have the world’s attention. There are two speeches to watch (1) Un Speech - which led to the interpreter breaking down and (2) Address to the Russian people. The latter was a particularly brilliant speech that was directed directly at the Russian people to get them to try and stop the attack. 

On the other hand, we have seen Russia jettisoned from the global social media sites with Youtube, Facebook and many more banning Russia state channels. We have to reconcile this with a web3 future where we are supporting decentralization and open and free communication.  We have yet to see web3 social media platforms take off, but it will happen. We have yet to see web2 social media platforms embrace web3 by issuing tokens, I also believe that will happen.  However, in a web3 future where society at large could benefit from silencing certain parties but are unable to do so as nobody controls the platform upon which they are speaking, how does that impact us?  

Access

The Russian government is conducting cyberattacks against Ukraine’s internet access and has brought it to it’s knees. This is why Elon replied to this 

And he delivered, suddenly low earth orbit satellites are providing internet access to parts of Ukraine. To me it is incredible that a single person, a private individual can restore such a basic human right with a single tweet. 

Does web3 have a solution to this? Sort of.  Helium, is a decentralised wireless network to allow anyone to share a hardware wifi access spot in return they earn tokens. I am not sure this would have withstood a cyberattack on the internet backbone but I can see a future where they switch their backhaul into peer to peer within Ukraine and then as it crosses borders it can use the backhaul of neighbouring countries to avoid the direct hit Ukraine’s networks took.   Directionally we are moving in the right direction where web3 can provide a solution to these cyberattacks. 

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What we are seeing here is a war that is being played out both on the ground with brave people trying to save their homeland, as well as online. Ukraine has already won the internet and they have done so by being social media smart and web3 savvy.  This is just the start and it’s just astonishing to see the power of web3 being brought to bear in a crisis like this.  

I have one wish though in closing. Take this sympathy that we all have for the terrible plight of Ukrainians and remember it. Next time we see / support / fund a war in a different part of the world but whose people may be different from us, we remember this feeling.  Those people might be different but are facing the same devastating consequences of war. I really hope that we show them equal empathy and compassion. War sucks.