Ethereum’s Russian founder Buterin backs Ukraine

Russian-born Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has blatantly verbalised dissent to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as he took to Twitter to air out his opinions last February 24 after Vladimir Putin announced his ‘special military operation’ in the ex-Soviet country. 

He followed up on his dissent by sharing tweets condemning Russia and Putin, calling for an end to hostilities by Russia to the Ukrainian nation. 

In the following days, he also tweeted that the first priority at the moment is to support Ukraine as well as the Russians and Belarusians who refuse to be part of Putin’s ‘Z-ombie regime’. 

As of press time, there’s no announcement from Ethereum about bans involving Russian users and wallet addresses. This, however, did not stop Buterin from spewing criticism on the political unrest happening between the opposing countries. 

‘Reminder: Ethereum is neutral, but I am not,’ Buterin said as a follow up to his tweets about Russia. 

This was met with polarised responses from the Twitterverse with many calling him to ‘stick to cryptocurrency’ and ‘leave the politics with experts.’ 

One respondent called him a traitor for putting Russia and Putin under the bus despite his Russian roots. This was met with a response from the Ethereum co-founder that was written in mandarin that roughly translates to:

‘True patriotism sometimes entails fighting against the evil coming out of your own country. That is the way to help your own country become a more beautiful place,’ he wrote. 

Several social media observers as well as crypto Titan Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, gave his support to Vitalik saying that the world is lucky to have the Russian-born Ethereum co-founder. 

Buterin was born in Russia but moved to Canada when he was 6 years old. 

Recently, the US administration and lawmakers called for the crypto industry to tighten its regulations on illegal transactions that may arise in Russian-based accounts. This led to some exchanges including Coinbase to start restrictions on the region. 

At the moment, Coinbase has suspended 250,000 Russian accounts on their platforms. Meanwhile, Visa, Mastercard and American Express have completely suspended operations in the country. 

Russia continues to barrage Ukraine that feeds further conflict into the crisis with half of the city of Kyiv fleeing to safety. Over 2 million have left the capital since the fighting has intensified. 

Get to know more updates on cryptocurrency news on the Russia and Ukraine crises as you browse through BTC Post.