Message from the Founders | Bitpanda’s Response to the War in Ukraine

Bitpanda Emergency Response Fund

We share the fundamental belief that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We’re so much stronger together and now it’s time to leverage the power of the amazing Bitpanda community. This is why we’re setting up the Bitpanda Emergency Response Fund, a crowdfunding platform that allows our community to contribute the crypto assets of their choice to causes that provide humanitarian support to people affected by the war.

The initial beneficiaries of the Bitpanda Emergency Response Fund are two organisations whose missions highly resonate with all of us:

• Save the Children - Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund that provides life-saving aid to children and their families in Ukraine and neighbouring countries in need of water, shelter and food;
  
  

• Doctors Without Borders - Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) that provides emergency response activities in Ukraine and at the border.

We recognise there are many causes worth supporting; therefore, we will continue to add new organisations, as referred by our team and our 3 million+ community. 

How it works

Our philosophy is that any asset should be used for anything, anytime. This is why anyone in the Bitpanda community is now able to donate the crypto assets of their choice by sending them to ukraine@bitpanda.com. We will convert all these crypto assets into euros without any fees and donate them to the selected organisations.

We will kickstart the donations with a EUR 100,000 contribution on behalf of Bitpanda, and we then match every donation up to EUR 500,000 in total. On top of that, as founders, each of us will individually contribute a personal donation of EUR 50,000. Find out more here.

Crypto Donations to Ukraine

If you want to donate to the Ukrainian government directly, they are now accepting cryptocurrency donations. Our Product team went above and beyond to make sure that donations can be made smoothly, straight from your Bitpanda account. You can use the wallet addresses below to support directly:

• Bitcoin 357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P
  
  

• Ethereum 0x165CD37b4C644C2921454429E7F9358d18A45e14
  
  

• Tether TEFccmfQ38cZS1DTZVhsxKVDckA8Y6VfCy
  
  

• Polkadot 1x8aa2N2Ar9SQweJv9vsuZn3WYDHu7gMQu1RePjZuBe33Hv

Bitpanda Emergency Response Team

This abominable war has shown us an ugly side of humankind. But it has also shown that there’s so much goodness and solidarity in the face of atrocity. We are personally humbled and amazed by how many people in our team are willing to volunteer and bring a meaningful contribution to those in need. 

This is the true Panda spirit and we couldn’t be more proud of our people. We are supporting their individual initiatives and ideas by establishing the Bitpanda Emergency Response Team, offering full leadership support, as well as paid time off for our people who want to contribute by volunteering for organisations that support humanitarian causes or emergency response authorities.

Prioritising mental health in unsettling times

In light of the current events, we want to place a strong emphasis on ensuring that our team members are prioritising their mental health and wellbeing. The invasion of Ukraine has impacted everyone — no matter where we’re located or where we come from. We want our people to know that they’re not alone and it’s normal to be stressed or anxious in these unsettling times. We are now offering free and anonymous mental health support with certified psychologists to the entire Bitpanda team.

Standing strong, together

In these difficult times, we are also deeply concerned about the wellbeing of our Russian colleagues. They are incredibly talented people that have done nothing wrong, are in utter shock and are equally horrified about what is happening. This is not their fault. We, at Bitpanda, have a zero tolerance policy for xenophobia and xenophobic discourse. We stand strong, together, irrespective of where we come from. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the people that are affected by this unnecessary and unwanted war: the Ukrainian people AND the Russian people who do not support this war and who are collateral victims of the atrocities committed by their government.

Faith in humanity

Despite all the things happening, we have deep faith in humanity. War is never a solution and should never be an option. We hope that we can all find the strength to be there for each other and support the people that are affected by these terrible events. Here’s to hope that there will be more peaceful times ahead.

Yours sincerely,

Eric, Paul & Christian

Bitpanda Founders