Ukraine Bets Big on Bitcoin: Parliament Pushes for National Crypto Reserves
Kyiv shakes up traditional finance—lawmakers draft legislation to add BTC to national reserves. A hedge against inflation or a Hail Mary pass? Wall Street bankers clutch their pearls.
No more waiting for IMF bailouts. Ukraine’s pivot to Bitcoin could rewrite the sovereign playbook—if they survive the volatility.
Meanwhile, legacy finance dinosaurs mutter about ’speculative risks’ while quietly stacking sats themselves.
Ukraine To Establish A Bitcoin Reserve
Zhelezniak first floated the idea in early February, when he announced plans for “a draft law from the industry allowing the creation of crypto reserves.” That earlier statement, which contained no specifics, is now taking shape as Kyiv seeks new tools to manage its growing trove of digital assets.
Global exchange Binance is advising lawmakers on the initiative. Kirill Khomyakov, Binance’s regional head for Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Africa, said the company “supports Ukraine’s ambition to create a strategic crypto reserve,” while cautioning that “the creation of such a reserve will require significant changes in legislation, which indicates that this process will not be quick.” He added that the effort should “lead to greater clarity in the regulation of crypto assets in Ukraine.”
The reserve proposal lands amid a wider battle over Ukraine’s long-delayed virtual-assets framework. At the end of April, the same Rada committee unanimously approved a comprehensive draft law on VIRTUAL assets, anticipating a first reading within weeks. But the bill was abruptly withdrawn at the request of the Presidential Office after objections from the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC) and its chair, Ruslan Magomedov.
The NSSMC later issued an unusual disclaimer, insisting it “has no relation to decisions regarding the possible suspension or blocking of the bill’s consideration in the Verkhovna Rada, as it is not authorised to make such decisions,” and it filed 80 amendments of its own.
Even without a formal reserve, Ukraine is de facto one of the world’s largest sovereign Bitcoin holders. Public block-chain data collated by BitcoinTreasuries shows government-controlled wallets hold about 46,351 BTC, worth roughly $4.8 billion at current prices, placing Ukraine fourth globally behind the United States, China and the United Kingdom.
Most of that balance was presumably donated. Blockchain-analytics firm Elliptic estimates that pro-Ukrainian fund-raisers have received more than $212 million in crypto assets since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, including approximately $83 million sent directly to wallets advertised by the Ukrainian government
A separate crypto fund launched by Kyiv exchange Kuna and the Ministry of Digital Transformation collected over $100 million in its first two months. Non-governmental organisations such as the Come Back Alive Foundation have drawn “several million dollars” more in bitcoin and stablecoins to equip the armed forces.
Ukraine has also added to its holdings through corruption-related seizures. In December 2023 the National Anti-Corruption Bureau confiscated 6.9 BTC and $1.2 million in USDT from Yuriy Shchigol, former head of the State Special Communications Service, under a warrant from the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court.
Kyiv’s strategy echoes the move by the United States: on 6 March 2025 President Donald TRUMP signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve that will initially warehouse all Bitcoin seized in federal criminal and civil cases and explore “budget-neutral” ways to acquire more.
At press time, BTC traded at $102,625.
