Ethereum Founder Sends $227k To Turkey Earthquake Victims

Updated: 13 February 2023

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Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, has donated over $227,000 in ETH towards the support of ongoing relief efforts in Turkey after the earthquake. Earthquakes recently hit Turkey and Syria with a magnitude of 7.8 leading to the massive destruction of buildings which resulted in the loss of at least 34,000 lives according to recent reports.

#Ethereum founder @Vitalik Sends $227k To help #TurkeyEarthquake Victims

— ErmoFi (@ErmofiNews) February 13, 2023

In response, the crypto industry has been making donations, pledges, and contributions in various cryptocurrencies to assist the victims and survivors of the catastrophe. Buterin has also shown his support by actively contributing Ethereum to Turkey’s rescue efforts throughout the last week.

First, Buterin donated 99 ETH, which is worth around $150,000, to Ahbap which is a private non-profit organization dedicated to the relief efforts ongoing in Turkey. Ahbap, which is headed by Turkish rock star Haluk Levent, was the first organization to be permitted to receive crypto donations in the crypto-banned country. The organization shared the addresses through which they are accepting donations.

Most recently, the Ethereum founder has made a 50 ETH donation, which equates to about $77,000, to Anka Relief as reported by PeckShield, a blockchain security firm. Anka Relief expressed their gratitude to Buterin for his generosity and stated that they had been receiving crypto donations since the disaster struck.

#PeckShieldAlert vitalik.eth donated ~50 $ETH (~$77k) to Anka Relief: Turkey Donationhttps://t.co/KwFzqOrpMD pic.twitter.com/57GKIc0qRa

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) February 13, 2023

“Since day 1 of the disaster, we witnessed donations piling in the wallets of a handful of major NGOs. Great that they have attracted and will be attracting more funds,” said the organization adding that they were planning on distributing the donations among registered NGOs to support their operations and reach victims faster. In addition, the organization also published the addresses through which crypto donations can be made.

In total, Buterin has donated over $227,000 in ETH to the two Turkish earthquake relief organizations, showcasing his compassion and commitment to supporting those in need during a crisis.

Crypto Community to the rescue

The crypto community has yet again shown up to help those in need by making generous donations. This time, the community convinced Turkish rock star Haluk Levent to open a crypto wallet despite the fact that the country has had a ban on crypto transactions since 2021. Levent was, however, able to address the issue with the government and received permission from MASAK, the Turkish financial watchdogs, to set up a wallet and receive the contributions for one week.

The crypto community led by executives and firms went on to contribute over $2 million in just a few hours of the addresses being published under Ahbap. Avalanche for instance donated $ 1 million worth of AVAX while encouraging others to join in the efforts.

Binance on the other hand pledged to airdrop $100 to their users based in Turkey which translated to approximately $5 million.

Time to take care of our users. 🇹🇷❤️#Binance to Airdrop $100 USD in BNB to Users in Turkey Earthquake Regions. Total roughly $5m USD (94m TRY).

More efforts still being worked on.https://t.co/Z4uACsf5Xe

— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) February 7, 2023

The addresses continue to receive donations with the Ahbap wallet currently holding over $4.3 million dollars in stablecoins and other tokens. This goes to show how much the crypto community is invested in helping victims of crises across the world.

In 2022, Ukraine received over $20 million in crypto contributions to aid in fighting the Russian Invasion. In 2021, Vitalik donated $1 billion in crypto towards Covid-19 relief.