Tether: Ukraine Officials’ Crypto of Choice, Declarations Double During War
It seems more and more officials in Ukraine are embracing cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) catching their eye. Interestingly, it’s the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin Tether (USDT) that’s proving to be the favorite for holding value among their digital assets.
The number of government employees declaring their crypto holdings has more than doubled since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country began three years ago. And get this – a recent study reveals that these filings have jumped by another 10% in just the last year.
Over 2,000 Ukrainian Officials Report Crypto Assets in 2024
It turns out that more and more Ukrainians working in government are declaring their cryptocurrency holdings in their annual declarations, as required by law. In fact, crypto news source Forklog, citing a recent study, highlighted that 2,113 of these filings have already been registered in 2024 alone.
Data from Opendatabot, a public registry monitoring service, shows some interesting trends. They found that the number of crypto declarations filed last year was a whopping 2.2 times higher than before the full-scale war with Russia began in early 2022, really emphasizing how much this is on the rise.
Just looking at 2024, crypto declarations are already up by 10% compared to the previous year, with 1,917 filed in 2023. The numbers really took off in 2022, jumping from 960 in 2021 to 1,481. That’s the year, of course, that Russian forces launched their invasion of Ukraine by land, air, and sea.
Drilling down into the details, the report shows that Tether (USDT), the stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, was the most popular choice last year, showing up in just over 6% of declarations. Bitcoin, the biggest crypto of them all by market value, takes second place with 5.5%, closely followed by Ethereum at 5.4%. Beyond these top three, 3.1% of officials are holding XRP, and 2.4% have invested in DOGE.
Opendatabot elaborated, “Tether (USDT) is the cryptocurrency officials declare most often, with 802 government employees reporting it in their holdings. Even with market ups and downs, Bitcoin (BTC, XBT) is still in second place, appearing in 731 declarations. Ethereum (ETH) isn’t far behind, declared by 713 officials.”
Ukrainian Police Officers Lead the Way in Declaring Crypto Holdings
The study authors discovered that officials from law enforcement are making up the largest group when it comes to filing crypto declarations. The National Police of Ukraine is at the top with 322 filings, making up 15% of the total – they’re really leading the pack. Following them is the Prosecutor’s Office, with 240 officials owning crypto, which is over 11% of the declarations.
Close behind are representatives from the judiciary, with 227 declarations. And among the personnel serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (ZSU), 77 declared owning cryptocurrency. Interestingly, only 38 crypto holders work for the National Anti-corruption Bureau (NABU).
Looking at where these officials are located geographically, Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and the surrounding Kyiv region are in the lead with 582 and 185 officials holding digital assets, respectively. Kharkiv Oblast is next with 172. Rounding out the top five are the regions of Dnipropetrovsk, with 167 declarations, and Lviv in Western Ukraine, with 133.
Opendatabot also highlighted some of the government officials who declared the largest crypto holdings. One of them is Oleg Bondarenko, head of the parliamentary Committee on Environmental Policy, who holds a significant 80 BTC, valued at 279.4 million Ukrainian hryvnias (nearly $6.8 million) as of April 1, 2025.
When it comes to Ethereum, Ukrainian lawmaker Serhii Maizel is a big player, declaring 200 ETH, worth 15.5 million hryvnia (over $376,000). Then there’s Vitalii Brovko, a department head at the Prosecutor General’s Office, who declared a massive 847,908 USDT, which is about 35 million Ukrainian hryvnia (almost $850,000).
“Interestingly, some former officials even reported losing access to their crypto holdings,” the data monitoring service pointed out. Examples of this include Roman Saramaha, who back in 2021 declared over 380 BTC when he was deputy head of the State Geological Service, and Ihor Osipov, a member of a district council in Odesa, who said he’d lost around 1,800 ETH that he’d listed in his previous declaration.
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