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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin surprised attendees of the Kyiv Tech Summit yesterday by showing support for war-torn Ukraine, the appearance of which is closely guarded for security reasons.
Buterin’s support for Ukraine is not surprising. While the Ethereum co-founder was born in Russia and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017 to discuss Ethereum’s opportunities, he has been critical of his home government for years as well as the war with Ukraine. However, his visit was notable due to the time that coincided with Ethereum’s The Merge event.
“I’ve been following Ukraine closely since the war started,” he said. Buterin said as he spoke during the summit’s closing session. “I want to come and see for myself” and “also let Ukraine know that a lot of people in the blockchain world, Ethereum, cryptocurrencies really care about you and a lot of people support you.”
Buterin was in Kyiv at a time when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was also making a surprise unannounced trip to Kyiv. Blinken did not attend the Kyiv Tech Summit.
The wartime conference brought together 30 technology experts, the most famous of which was Buterin, and two government officials – Mykhailo Fedorov, deputy prime minister and minister of digital transformation for the country’s IT development, and Alex Bornyakov, who participated in cryptocurrencies in Ukraine.
The three-day event focused on 500 hackers who submitted nearly 50 projects as part of a crypto-related hackathon to support Ukrainians in their fight for freedom. What stood out among the topics discussed were decentralized election voting, central banks issuing digital currencies, and the role of Web3 and blockchain in combating misinformation.
Buterin, who has made a large monetary contribution to Ukraine’s wartime effort, also said he came to see what projects Ukrainians are working on, what they are interested in, what they are building and what impacts one will find in Ukraine: blockchain, Web3 or Ethereum?
“It’s unbelievable that Vitalik joins us on the ground as well as key figures from the Ministry of Digital Transformation,” said CJ Hetherington, co-founder of the conference. “Kyiv Tech Summit is more than just a regular tech event. It is a protest, a movement, and the embodiment of Ukraine’s unyielding spirit.”
Other speakers at the conference included Kiril Khomiakov, general manager of Binance Ukraine; Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol; and Pavlo Kartashov, director of the Ukrainian Start-up Foundation.
