Indie Russian news firm raises $250K in crypto after sanctions cripple finances
A Russian independent news company has raised more than US$250,000 in cryptocurrency donations from supporters in order to continue reporting independent news under a barrage of Russian government propaganda and censorship.
Meduza, a Latvian-based Russian-language news site that claims to report on “the real Russia, today” has been asking for donations since March in the form of USD, euros and cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Binance (BNB), Tether (USDT), Monero (XMR) and zcash (ZEC).
Since publishing their donations plea, the news company has received around US$250,000 in crypto donations through 146,000 individual transactions. Around 93% of the total donation amount came in the form of 3.75 BTC ($116,954) and 49.9 ETH ($117,767).
Folks, Meduza has redesigned its crowdfunding after being disconnected from our supporters in Russia. We now turn to you—our global audience—to replace those 30k donators. Help us keep Russians & the world informed about the monstrous war against Ukraine. https://t.co/y83ieV9LuT
Meduza’s money troubles actually began in April 2021, after it and several other independent media outlets got labelled by Russia’s Justice Ministry as “foreign agents,” requiring the company to place a large font warning in each of its Russian-language articles informing readers of its “foreign agent” status. The same warning also has to appear in all advertisements, leading to a loss of nearly all its advertisers. It wrote on its donations FAQ:
Being labelled as a foreign agent did not prevent readers in Russia from donating to the organization however, as the company promptly set up an avenue for contributors to provide regulator donations through their banks using payment processor Stripe.
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