From state foe to Ukraine's crypto warrior

Michael Chobanian is regarded as the 'godfather of cryptocurrencies' in Ukraine.

Michael Chobanian is considered the "godfather of cryptocurrencies" in Ukraine. Before the war, he was nearly arrested for it. Now he buys bulletproof vests and medicine for the government with Bitcoin.

Michael Chobanian never fired a shot in the war and has still become a small national hero of Ukraine. In the desperate fight against Russian domination, the 38-year-old is wielding a new weapon: the power of cryptocurrencies.

Since the invasion began, Michael Chobanian has raised donations worldwide in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other assets for the Ukrainian government. The money is meant to buy food and medicines for civilians, but also bulletproof vests and helmets for soldiers.

It’s an unprecedented solidarity campaign in the young history of crypto, and one of the many wild twists in the life of a young Ukrainian. In his homeland he’s seen as the "godfather of cryptocurrencies." Before the war, he was nearly arrested for it.

Chobanian's father mined coal and Michael Bitcoin

Michael Chobanian was born in 1984 in eastern Ukraine, in the Donbass region. The area is where the fiercest fighting is now taking place. When he was 13, his parents sent him to an English boarding school. "My father worked his whole life in the coal mine, just like his father before him," Chobanian says. "Later, I mined Bitcoin in his office." Digital gold would be his ticket out of the dirty family business — to freedom.

But a London School of Economics graduate doesn’t even believe in Bitcoin’s value when he first hears about it in 2011. He thought it was a crazy idea — just like many others at the time. For Chobanian, the revelation came two years later, with the Cyprus banking crisis. "The government took people’s money," he says. "Buying Bitcoin was the only way for people to save their wealth. So I thought: if Bitcoin can protect you from state tyranny, I should study it. And I did, for almost a year and a half. It was mind-blowing."

Michael Chobanian reads and informs himself daily about Bitcoin and more, networks with the global crypto community, finds friends and allies online, including in Ukraine. In the summer of 2014, he set up his first Bitcoin mining farm with ASIC miners in his father’s kitchen. A year later, he launches Ukraine’s first crypto exchange, Kuna, and installs the country’s first Bitcoin ATM. Michael Chobanian becomes the face of the local crypto scene, appears everywhere in the media, and speaks at conferences with banks. This also made him a target for state authorities.

In September 2015, police raided his Kyiv apartment. They seized hard drives, CDs, and mobile phones, looking for material to extort the crypto-banker. They found nothing. Chobanian published the incident online. It made him famous across the country.

Crypto spreads like wildfire in Ukraine in these years. According to Chainalysis, the country is now among the top adopters globally. Kyiv becomes the center of this vibrant scene. Many large companies set up in the Ukrainian capital. Each week, hundreds of nerds gather at programming competitions called hackathons. They party. "It was a wild time," Chobanian recalls.

Escape from Ukraine in two classic cars

On February 24, 2022, at five in the morning, this chapter ends. The first Russian bombs fall on Ukraine, including Kyiv. The air raid siren wakes Michael Chobanian and his family. They’ve prepared for this emergency for weeks. Two vintage cars with full tanks sit in the garage. Their backpacks are stuffed with US dollars, euros, and their crypto assets are stored on hardware wallets. The Chobanians flee to the rest of Europe via western Ukraine, a 700-kilometer, 36-hour drive, and a huge border traffic jam. Meanwhile, millions of Ukrainians have fled.

A day after arriving abroad, Michael Chobanian launches a crypto-donation campaign, first on his Telegram channel with more than 100,000 followers. Then the Ukrainian minister calls for a virtual talk with him. Chobanian is asked to lead Ukraine’s official crypto-donation campaign using his Kuna platform. They post the appeal on social media. Crypto stars like Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Polkadot founder Gavin Wood contribute millions. In April, President Zelensky even fast-tracked cryptocurrency as legal tender.

"The campaign has saved many lives," Chobanian says. "A Bitcoin transaction takes fifteen minutes, sending money from abroad via SWIFT takes two days or more. Even the last skeptics in the military and government understand now: crypto has value for them and for our country."

Michael Chobanian travels the world with his Bitcoin message. Every week he’s on another continent, asking the crypto community for support at conferences. "I’m currently living on an airplane," he says. Right now he’s in Asia, next week in the U.S., then in Europe.

Although thousands of kilometers from the front line, the shock of war sticks with him. "If I hear crickets at night here, I think of the air-raid warnings and the bombs. It makes me nervous," the Ukrainian says.

Belief in the power of cryptocurrency has taken the son of a miner far. Michael Chobanian even spoke before the U.S. Senate in mid-April. The title of his short but moving speech: "Cryptocurrencies — the defenders of freedom and democracy".