The United Nations refugee agency, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will begin assisting refugees Ukrainians via the USDC stablecoin through digital wallets that are based via the Stellar ($XLM) network.
In an announcement made in the last announcement that the UNHCR has announced a new program that uses its Stellar blockchain for transferring USDC, an unchanging cryptocurrency created through Circle and Coinbase that’s backed by U.S. dollars and short-term U.S. Treasury securities, to Ukrainians affected by Russia’s incursion of Ukraine.
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Ukrainians can take the money and convert them into dollars, euros or any other currency at MoneyGram locations across the world. In Ukraine there are 4500 locations that are available for use.
The use of USDC on Stellar will aid people who are displaced to access money faster, while minimizing the possibility of theft or loss when they’re moving. The UNHCR representative to Ukraine, Karolina Lindholm Billing mentioned that speed “is essential in the field of humanitarian aid,” and added:
UNHCR has been working since the beginning of time with the tech sector, and has played an important role in assisting us in innovating to provide assistance more quickly and more efficiently, since speed is of paramount importance in humanitarian work.
The Ukrainian government has made use of cryptocurrency in the last year. It has raised close to 100 million dollars in donations to cryptocurrency just after the Russian invasion began in the spring, and then the government launched a non-fungible currency (NFT) collection that will raise money.
The UNHCR’s program has been launched in conjunction together with Stellar Development Foundation and is being trialled through three Ukrainian cities Kyiv, Lviv, and Vinnytsia. The program is scheduled to be expanded to other regions in the near future.
To access funds, individuals need to download cryptocurrency wallet app known as Vibrant. With it, they’ll receive USDC in their accounts, that can later be converted into USDC. The project was developed in collaboration by Stellar Development Foundation. Stellar Development Foundation.
The Stellar Development Foundation is “a non-profit organization that was founded in 2014 in order to assist in the development and expansion of the open source Stellar network.” In the course of this year it collaborated in conjunction with Mercado Bitcoin, Latin America’s most popular crypto exchange to develop a project that will study possibilities for central bank’s digital currency (CBDC).