War in Ukraine: facing the Kremlin, an independent Russian newspaper writes thanks to Bitcoin


Cryptos to the rescue of the media – To cope with the impacts of the war in Ukraine, this Russian independent media must now rely solely on foreign funds. These are sent to him in the form of fiat currencies or cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (BTC).

Bitcoin and Ether to finance journalistic independence in Russia

The traditional financing of the Russian independent media Medusa via rubles are among the casualties of the war in Ukraine. The media had to turn to cryptocurrencies in order to finance its activities. As an independent media, Meduza has suffered since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, pressure from the Putin Administration.

The authorities are indeed cracking down on independent reports that attempt to cover the conflict in neighboring Ukraine. Unfavorable conditions for the development of ” true ” journalism in the country. In addition, Meduza had already been designated, in 2021, as a “foreign agent” by the Russian government.

International financing enabled by cryptocurrency

Given this difficult context, the media wanted to reinstall its 25 journalists in Latvia. This move and the continuation of the newspaper’s activities are, however, faced with the lack of funding.

Meduza can no longer count on the support of its 30,000 Russian readers. Indeed, they can no longer make payments via Stripe. The payment gateway had to to suspend its services in Russia to comply with sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies.

To obtain the financial resources it needs, Meduza must therefore reach out to an international audience and expand the payment methods they accept: card, bank transfer, PayPal, and cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin (BTC), theEther (ETH)Binance coin (BNB), Binance Smart Chain BEP-20 tokens, Tether (USDT), Monero (XMR), and Zcash (ZEC).

The BTC and ETH addresses displayed on the media site currently hold 3.75 BTC – just over $110,000 – and ETH 49.92 – just over $110,000.

The editor of Meduza, Ivan Kolpakov, said the outlet has received about half of the funds it needs. Furthermore, he pointed out that Meduza dependsfor the first time, fully funding from abroad.

Some media have need for cryptocurrency in order to continue to operate. Others, for their part, have rather chosen to close their doors to Bitcoin and its cadetsciting environmental concerns.



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