The Crypto COVID Relief for India Pours In

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

In the wake of India’s catastrophic second wave of COVID infections, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal set up a relief fund to help the country deal with the pandemic. He invited his tech peeps to donate to the relief fund, and some big names have accepted the initiative. Among them are Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin who donated even more crypto for the second time.

The fund has so far collected donations worth over $6 million in 10 different cryptocurrencies. The funniest thing about it is that India hasn’t regulated cryptos yet. However, the fund creator has a solution for that that will give Indian hospitals massive donations that should help the country deal with the massive COVID wave.

Help Pouring in from All Corners

For nearly two months, India has been fighting a deadly new wave of coronavirus infections that has decimated the country. The Indian PM has publicly asked for help, and luckily, it has been coming from all directions. The government of India still hasn’t regulated cryptocurrency, yet Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal set up a crypto relief fund which has been pouring in so far.

Among those who donated besides Buterin are cricketeer Brett Lee with a full Bitcoin. Entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan donated $50,000 in Ethereum and pledged to double that soon. Hubspot CEO matched his donation as well. The relief fund truly took off when Nailwal put up a call of arms to his Twitter friends after setting up the website cryptorelief.in. In just a few weeks, the fund got around $6 million in donations.

According to Nailwal, the fund was set up to help India while fully complying with its laws. In the beginning, he thought about transferring the funds through the three biggest crypto exchanges. However, he quickly realized that might put them into trouble, so he came up with another way of donating the funds to India.

He created a special entity in the UAE where the collected funds will be transferred to publicly available e-wallets. Nailwal also stuck a deal with FV Bank in the USA that will carry out the conversion to fiat currency. The fund transfer will also go through this bank so that the money will be donated where needed.

Over $1 Million Already Disbursed

The crypto relief fund has already disbursed over $1 million via startups to support the medical oxygen demand in India. Nailwal has also partnered with the two biggest healthcare supply platforms in India to work faster and more efficiently.

A group of crypto volunteers helped bring over 3,000 oxygen cylinders via an Indian Navy Ship from Kuwait, which shows that people are willing to help Nailwal complete his goal. Digital artists have also been donating crypto coins which is almost unheard of in a country where cryptos are illegal.

Now’s the time for Indian politicians to take a look at all the advantages cryptos bring and how they could help the community thrive. Nailwal’s goal is to collect more in donations and at this pace, we’re sure that’ll happen soon.

May 12, 2021: • No Comments

Comments are closed.