Cryptocurrency companies have been at the forefront of promoting areas that are disaster stricken through financial aid and many other forms. For instance, they may create a donation system where users can give cryptocurrency to a particular group or relief fund.
After two powerful earthquakes wrecked houses and cut off entire regions of Syria and Turkey from essential utilities like power and water, the cryptocurrency community reacted immediately with donations. In addition, some companies have offered direct relief support to the earthquake-stricken areas, such as Bybit, BitMEX, XRP, Binance, Bitfinex, and individual contributions.
People have taken it to social media, i.e., Twitter asking if people could aid in a donation for the less fortunate people who were affected. A tragic earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 affected many regions of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Armenia, Georgia, and Jordan, which caused over 5000 fatalities.
Turkish singer Haluk Levent met with the nation’s financial regulatory body to discuss the potential for setting up bitcoin contribution wallets. Levent polled his 6.7 million Twitter followers on whether he should create a cryptocurrency account where people could donate to Ahbap, also known as the Dude Association, a nonprofit organization.
“Open a Cryptocurrency Account”
“Open a crypto account, bro,” was the response chosen by 82.9% of survey respondents. To receive donations from the cryptocurrency community for their earthquake relief efforts in Turkey, Ahbap, and Levent have set up a multi-signature wallet on the BNB Chain.
Levent also revealed the specifics of three recently formed cryptocurrency wallets that temporarily accept donations. However, following Levent’s message, phony Twitter accounts started to appear, linking to their cryptocurrency wallets and posing as nonprofit groups helping the afflicted people in Turkey.
The artist, Levent, advised his followers to alert the appropriate authorities about these accounts. One of these accounts used the same name and emblem as Levent’s non-governmental organization (NGO), AHBAP, which aids those in need in Turkey.
Despite users tagging Twitter and Elon Musk to verify the legitimacy of the genuine NGO, neither the legitimate AHBAP account nor the phony AHBAP account has a verification badge on Twitter. Twitter eventually deleted the bogus account.
Requests for comments regarding whether the platform will confirm the validity of the AHBAP account still need to be answered by the platform. Murat Pak, a well-known digital artist, also promised to help and said he was working to organize an NFT campaign for Turkey and Ahbap.
Baki Er, a co-founder of the web3 analytics platform Lytera, leaped on the opportunity, calling it “the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” describing Ahbap as the “most renowned charity in Turkey” and urging the neighborhood to contribute.
In addition to updating everyone as soon as possible, Bitfinex has assured us they are working on a support package. In response to the news, Bybit conveyed their profound regret and sent their condolences to anyone who had lost family members or friends.
A cryptocurrency exchange named Binance has revealed that it will give away $9 million in aid, including an airdrop of $100 worth of Binance Coin (BNB), to all of its customers in the parts of Turkey most severely affected by the disaster. This action will result in the delivery of assistance to these locations worth close to $5 million.
As per Etherscan data, donations of $1.2 million were sent to an Ethereum by the community. The sum in the Avalanche wallet is over $1.18 million, while the balance in the Binance Coin wallet is over $644,000. Therefore, the community needs to give donations exclusively to reputable organizations and refrain from giving to con artists.