E03 - Liz Izmailova on Ukraine and Charitable Crypto Donations

Liz Izmailova is a Ukrainian New Zealander that has been working in blockchain for the past five years, she is a marketing manager at CENNZnet which is part of the Centrality ecosystem.

In this conversation we talk about: 

• Financial Inclusion and the monetary situation in Ukraine, both before the war and presently.
• Ukraine has been ranked 4th in global per capita crypto adoption by Chainalysis and are likely the first to have a government directly accept crypto donations and provide transparency on where those donations are going.
• We cover a lot in the crypto-donation space in general, and some local New Zealand based projects.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:06 Ukrainian background, financial independence and entrepreneurship at an early age, coming to New Zealand
• 05:20 Financial privilege in the West
• 10:45 Crypto donations and the currency situation in Ukraine
• 16:07 New crypto legislation in Ukraine
• 20:04 War donation transparency
• 24:02 FlufWorld F*ck the War campaign & Universe.xyz
• 29:29 How are NFTs helping?
• 33:40 Crypto & NFTs for gen-Z'ers
• 36:35 Crypto friendly New Zealand charities
• 40:15 How can BCNZ help with education?
• 42:25 Rapid fire
• 44:37 fin 

Some notes from the show:

• Letter criticizing financial innovation https://concerned.tech/
• Rebuttal for financial inclusion https://www.financialinclusion.tech/
• Ukrainian Government crypto donation https://donate.thedigital.gov.ua/
• Ukrainian Government Bitcoin address visible in a block explorer: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P
• National Bank of Ukraine partners with FTX https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/03/14/ukraine-partners-with-ftx-everstake-to-launch-new-crypto-donation-website/
• USD $100m raised so far https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/03/09/ukraine-has-received-close-to-100-million-in-crypto-donations/
• Ukraine legalises Bitcoin https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/03/17/ukraine-war-zelenskyy-signs-a-new-law-officially-legalising-bitcoin-and-other-cryptos 
• $411k raised and donated to Ukraine by Auckland based FLUF & NonFungible Labs: https://luckytrader.com/nft/fluf-world/news/fluf-world-finalizes-400000-donation-to-ukraine
• Michael Chobanian, president of the Blockchain Association of Ukraine https://www.theverge.com/23138465/decoder-ukraine-war-cryptocurrency-michael-chobanian-interview-bitcoin-usdt
• Charitable Donations with cryptocurrency
  • UNICEF https://www.unicef.org.nz/donate-in-crypto
  • Childfund https://childfund.org.nz/pages/donate-your-cryptocurrency-to-childfund
  • Savethechildren