Crypto millionaires in Ukrainian politics

Ukrainian officials filed 1428 declarations with cryptocurrency assets in 2022. This is almost twice as many as in 2021 when crypto was mentioned in 788 declarations.

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The number of declarations filed with cryptocurrency

Year	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
Number of declarations	25	58	71	424	652	788	1,428

In the declarations for the year 2021, the most popular cryptocurrencies among Ukrainian officials were Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), and so on. In 2022, the top positions didn’t change much: Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) remained in demand, and Tether (USDT) joined the top three leaders as well.

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The top cryptocurrency declared by officials in 2022

Bitcoin	816	9.7%
Ethereum	624	7.4%
Tether	490	5.8%
Ripple	284	3.4%
SHIBA	278	3.3%
Cardano	246	2.9%
Solana	226	2.7%
NEAR	193	2.3%
Polkadot (DOT)	190	2.3%
Terra LUNA	184	2.2%
Other	4,848	57.9%

Which Ukrainian officials declared the most cryptocurrency?

First of all, it’s worth noting that declarants report their assets both in the equivalent value in hryvnias and simply by indicating the quantity of cryptocurrency units they own.

Bitcoins / Bitcoin (BTC)

In 2021, the highest amount declared for bitcoins was by Anna Pozdnyakova, the director of the Odessa City Heating Utility, with 53 million hryvnias. The following year, the top position was taken by Sergiy Karpenko, the deputy head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration, with bitcoins worth 41 million hryvnias.

The largest number of bitcoins declared for 2022 — 121 BTC was by Mykyta Dmytrovych Kuzkevych, a deputy of the Odessa Regional Council. At the time of publication, this was worth over 195 million hryvnias in equivalent value.

Ethereum (ETH)

Sergiy Karpenko, a government official from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast who declared the highest quantity of bitcoins, has also been the record holder for the amount of Ethereum declared for two consecutive years. In his declarations for 2021 and 2022, the official stated that he owned an equivalent amount in this cryptocurrency — 14.6 million hryvnias.

Cryptodollars / Tether (USDT)

The most cryptodollars or stablecoins declared for 2021 were declared by the deputy chief of the Prosecutor General’s Office department, Vitaliy Brovko — 774,500 units. This official also holds the record for the highest amount in equivalent — 20 million UAH.

The official retained the top position among declarants for 2022. The amount of cryptodollars in his possession remained unchanged, but their value increased to over 29 million UAH.

At the same time, the highest amount for cryptodollars/stablecoins was declared by the director of the State Executive Service Department of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, Maksym Kyselov — 25 million UAH.

The Biggest Losses in Crypto

It’s also worth noting that there are several officials who declared their crypto assets but stated that they lost access to them.

Roman Saramaga, Deputy Chairman of the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine, mentioned and lost 380.95 bitcoins—a record sum among Ukrainian officials — in 2021. In the hryvnia equivalent at the time of publication, this is approximately 615 million hryvnias.

The largest amount of Ethereum — 1,800 units or over 160 million hryvnias — belongs to Igor Osipov, a deputy of the Podil District Council in the Odessa region. In 2021 and 2022, the official stated in his declarations that he lost access to the cryptocurrency.

«After analyzing a large number of declarations, it’s important to note their poor completion. It seems like officials spend about 5 minutes on declarations on the last day of submission. Despite the fact that there is already a special section where one needs to indicate crypto assets, almost all crypto holdings are filled in differently, with mistakes and in different parts of the declarations.

Overall, from the obtained statistics, it seems that owning such an opaque asset as cryptocurrency is not considered risky or suspicious for officials. After all, the number of such officials has almost doubled over the past two years», 

— comments Oleksiy Ivankin, the founder of Opendatabot.

Context

Since the start of the full-scale war, the mandatory verification of officials’ declarations was temporarily suspended. However, the obligation for officials to report on their property status and changes to it was not lifted.

Last autumn, declaration checks were resumed. Therefore, Ukrainian officials had to catch up on any missing declarations from the previous period (2021 and 2022) by the end of January 2024.

The deadline for submitting declarations for the year 2023 remains unchanged — until April 2024.

Remember, you can check your deputy’s declaration using Opendatabot. To do this, add Opendatabot to your favorite messaging app and enter the official’s full name.