Sergey Vasylchuk, CEO of staking provider Everstake, stated that the company is making progress despite the ongoing military conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Exactly one year ago today, on February 24, 2022, Russian military forces invaded many parts of Ukraine in what has become one of the biggest conflicts in modern Europe since World War II. In the past twelve months, more than 8,000 civilians have been killed, many Ukrainian cities have been bombed and at least one nearly razed, and the country remains at risk of missile attacks and ground invasions.
Vasylchuk said that before February 24, he had been making preparations to mitigate the risk to Everstake and its employees, but still said that there were months when many people based in Ukraine were unable to work for different reasons. The Everstake CEO said he felt responsible for the livelihood of about 300 people: approximately 100 workers and their families.
“This […] forced me—I’m the manager—to move on,” Vasylchuk said. “We act on everything instantly […] We had a lot of help from partners, from other countries, from friends.”
Together with officials from the Ukrainian government, Kuna, and cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Everstake helped launch the Aid for Ukraine crypto donations platform in March 2022.. The website reported more than $60 million in fiat and cryptocurrency contributions, earmarked for initiatives including military equipment, medical equipment, and humanitarian projects.
“Essentially [estas donaciones fueron] a small drop in the budget from what we currently need, but at least it was something,” Vasylchuk said. “In short, Everstake got a lot stronger.”
According to the CEO, Many of Everstake’s employees continued to work from emergency shelters at various times over the past 12 months, coping with noise from nearby explosions, loss of power, and adjusting to the new “normal”:
“Right now, I can’t imagine what would scare us, what things would challenge us, to shock us, like ‘this is a mess.’ We could definitely be ready for anything right now.”
Amid attacks by Russian military forces, with a workforce spread across different countries, Everstake employees also faced online rumors and conspiracy theories – possibly promulgated by the Russian propaganda machine – that their platform was being used for money laundering for political reasons. Among the theories spread on social media was one suggesting that Aid for Ukraine funds had been funneled to the US Democratic Party due to the site’s association with FTX and political donations from ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Although Vasylchuk describes the algorithms that led to the online attacks as “very professional,” he added that he was still surprised that some people in the US were tricked into spreading the rumors. North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn mentioned the conspiracy theory to her thousands of Twitter followers, and some news outlets picked up on the story.
February 2020: USA is calling all Americans to leave Ukraine ☠️
February 2023: USA is sending the American President to Ukraine ♂️
What is going on?— Sergei | Everstake (@sergattic) February 20, 2023
February 2020: The US is calling on all Americans to leave Ukraine ☠️
February 2023: The US sends the US President to Ukraine ♂️
What’s going on?
The Everstake CEO compared the “uninhabitable” conditions of many companies in Ukraine to the coercive measures of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States, citing the agency’s recent crackdown on Kraken’s staking program. Although many parts of Ukraine remain under Russian military occupation, US President Joe Biden secretly traveled to kyiv on February 20 to visit President Volodymyr Zelensky.
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