LocalBitcoins Drops Fees for Ukrainian Users

Peer-to-peer trading platform LocalBitcoins has removed all fees for Ukrainian users in a show of solidarity. Citizens of the country can now receive bitcoin and convert it into the local currency without incurring any fees.

The LocalBitcoin peer-to-peer trading platform has removed all fees for Ukrainian users, part of its contribution to helping the country and its citizens being besieged by Russia. The platform announced the move over Twitter on March 1, saying that Ukrainians in the country and abroad would receive a free bitcoin wallet.

In its message to the people of Ukraine, LocalBitcoins said that its “core value is freedom.” As a consequence, the fee removal will include the receiving of bitcoin into Ukrainian wallets and the conversion of bitcoin to Ukrainian Hryvnia.

Crypto donations to Ukraine have crossed over $20 million. The country officially published a bitcoin and ethereum wallet to which donors could send contributions. Ukraine NFTs have also become popular in the past few days, with 43.2 million or so minted for each citizen of Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister asked crypto platforms to block Russian addresses following the sanctions. Some have agreed, though others say that the matter isn’t’ as simple as that.

Crypto world contributing to Ukraine

LocalBitcoins is the latest platform to come to the aid of Ukraine, which has seen a great deal of support from crypto entities. However, the crypto sphere is not universally aligned with western governments and their decisions. There has been loud criticism of many crypto platforms for not shutting down operations in Russia.

Governments are worried that Russia and its sanctioned individuals could use crypto to avoid the effects of the sanctions. Many crypto platforms and their executives, like Kraken CEO Jesse Powell, say that it would not be right to stop services for all Russian users. Powell said that there would need to be a legal requirement to do so.

Some platforms prefer to take a middle ground. Binance, one of the world’s largest exchanges, said that it would freeze the accounts of those on the sanctioned lists, but not all Russian users.

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