Aid for Ukraine: How a DAO mobilized during an emergency
When the Russian government invaded Ukraine on February 24th, the world was shocked — but for some projects, it was personal.
"All 96 people who work in Everstake faced the war in one way or another,” writes Sergey Vasylchuk, CEO of Ukraine-based Everstake, a staking infrasturcture provider and early supporter of the Solana blockchain. “Many of the employees joined territorial defense forces. Some joined the army and relocated to the front line to resist the enemy. A significant number of employees are currently volunteering and doing all they can to help our army and people in need.”
While the people at Everstake were stepping up on the ground, the Solana community was ready too. The crypto community —and the Solana ecosystem in particular — has deep ties to Ukraine, with many devs, founders, and projects coming from the country.
“Obviously, after all the news, the Solana community began to worry about Ukraine,” Vasylchuk wrote. “Many people began to ask how they could help Ukraine and where they could donate.” And the idea for Aid for Ukraine was born.
https://twitter.com/_AidForUkraine/status/1498346319190048770?ref=solana.ghost.io
Aid for Ukraine is a DAO that collects money from the Solana community and distributes it to an official Ukrainian government wallet. On February 26th, the Everstake team reached out to Ryan Shea of Solana Labs, who had been working on the new DAO interface called Nation, to help them get started.
“A DAO is the best option to do it quickly,” writes Vasylchuk. “For us, the most important thing is decentralization, so that all the money goes into the right hands.”
This is especially with so much uncertainty in the air, says Shea. “We really, in an unfortunate way, are using the features of a DAO for security and also for protection, because it's wartime.”
Using Nation’s user-focused front end was intended to make it easy for everyone to participate. “Number one is really making the experience of participating in and creating a DAO seamless for crypto-native users,” says Shea. Ultimately, Nation’s vision is to allow anyone — even non-crypto native folks — to easily make a DAO.
As a proof of concept, Aid for Ukraine has been a major success — in just a couple of days, the DAO raised over $1.4 million for the Ukrainian government. And you can still contribute here.
But for those who want to do more, Vasylchuk says it’s easy to help the Ukrainian cause. “Spread the info around the world! Support Ukraine with reposts and likes, show the truth,” he writes. “The more everyone talks about it, the better.”
Top Solana News
Save the date for Solana Miami
The Solana Hacker House World Tour is taking to the streets.
The Solana Foundation is proud to announce Solana Miami! Running from Apr. 5th through 10th, this exciting event is taking over a full block of beautiful Wynwood to celebrate the work of the builders, artists, merchants, and users who make up the Solana community — as well as the glass-chewing Solana Hacker House experience you know and love.
Grab your tickets early! This is going to be big.
Enter your project in #Riptide, the global Solana hackathon
Builders, get ready! The submission form for Riptide, the global Solana hackathon with $5 million in prizes and seed funding, is officially live. Submissions are due on March 17th at 11:59pm PT.
As you're working on your entry, remember to keep in mind:
- The hackathon has a hard cutoff date/time, so if it looks like you might miss it, submit your project early. You can always update it after you submit it.
- The presentation is SUPER important, whether it be a video or a slide deck. Each hackathon has a ton of submissions, and not all projects will have the chance to make it to the code review stage. Make sure your presentation is compelling enough to grab the judges and make it to the next round.
Change, Metaplex team up to power charity NFTs
Now it's easier than ever to give back on Solana.
Change, a donation protocol, recently announced a team-up with Metaplex to power charity NFTs. The API will allow anyone to split royalties on NFT sales towards a charitable wallet.
Change previously worked with charitable NFT projects in the Solana ecosystem like Belugies and Welcome to Chinatown.
Easy payments with mtnPay
mtnPay, a Solana Pay-powered payment app built that came out of the community-run mtnDAO hacker house, just released its merchant beta.
mtnPay uses Solana Pay and Square for an easy iOS point-of-sale system — and is already being used by merchants (and even a congressperson!)
Ecosystem Headlines
Here's what's new this month:
- Adobe's Behance adds support for Solana NFTs.
- Cronos, a decentralized task scheduler for Solana, launched on mainnet.
- Dune Analytics, a powerful tool for blockchain analytics and research, now supports Solana.
- Chingari, India's super entertainment app and decentralized short video platform, brings 35 million active users to Solana with the launch of its in-app wallet.
- Audius Rewards are now live on Solana.
- STEPN, a web3 running app with fun social and game elements. is now officially live on the Apple iOS store.
- Dialect, a web3 messaging app that aims to give wallets a secure, is now live and audited on Solana mainnet.
- Everlend, a decentralized meta lending protocol with in-built money market and yield / loan aggregator built on Solana, launched their alpha version.
