‘I’ve never paid with crypto before’: How digital assets make a difference amid a war

cointelegraph.com:

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has become a stress test for crypto in many tangible ways. Digital assets have emerged as an effective means of directly supporting humanitarian efforts, and the crypto industry, despite enormous pressure, has largely proved itself a mature community — one ready to comply with international policies without compromising the core principles of decentralization.

But there is another vital role that crypto has filled during these tragic events: It is becoming more and more familiar to those who have found themselves cut off from the payment systems that had once seemed unfailing.

Traditional financial infrastructures don’t usually work well during military confrontations and humanitarian crises. From hyperinflation and cash shortages to the destruction of ATMs, crises can disrupt the banking system’s ability to function and threaten the money supply for millions of regular individuals.

Cointelegraph spoke with some of the people who experienced these disruptions firsthand during the first days and weeks of the war. Some of them didn’t know much about crypto and had to learn fast, while others were lucky to have had some experience with digital assets that they could fall back on.

Some of these people are from Ukraine and have directly experienced the struggles of war, while others are from Russia and had to leave the country as their ordinary lives collapsed overnight. Their stories reveal that when the world comes crashing down, it is ordinary people for whom crypto provides the last line of support, not the corrupt elites.

Viktoria Fox is a Ukrainian-American entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Polaris Capital, a cryptocurrency mining company. Her parents moved from Ukraine to the United