Tainted for decades by financial scandals and buffeted by the infighting of oligarchs, Ukraine today is the second-poorest nation in Europe. (A counteroffensive is in the works, Bornyakov said.) Lithuania, Estonia, Malta, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam are in the race, too.įor Ukraine, the point isn’t merely new jobs and added tax revenue. So Poland is offering tax breaks and financial support to beckon tech professionals, even poaching in Ukraine.

Funding of all blockchain-related tech - cryptocurrencies, gaming, infrastructure, nonfungible tokens - soared to $7 billion in the first half of this year, according to CB Insights, a firm that tracks the industry. And lately, investors have been pumping at a hectic pace. If investors are going to pump money into these companies, then the companies should be enticed to relocate. As entrepreneurs pour into the field, some governments have made a simple calculation. But an international Crypto’s Got Talent contest is now underway, and many countries are competing. Plenty of economists and policymakers are deeply suspicious of crypto, decrying it as the currency of choice for money launderers, terrorists, mobsters and ransomware extortionists. The country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, met Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, as well as students at Stanford. “Our goal is to build the most convenient country in the world, for people and business.”īornyakov has taken that message - Ukraine as the ultimate destination for entrepreneurs in search of low taxes, a minimum of paperwork and plenty of skilled engineers - on a road show, including a summer tour of Silicon Valley. “We invest in startups and create proper conditions for their growth,” a female narrator says in English. Over a grinding techno soundtrack a montage of bakers, executives, nurses and assorted citizens are seen leading contented lives in a kind of high-tech nirvana. He has distilled the pitch into a 90-second infomercial that peddles Ukraine the same way that Apple peddles gadgets. “We believe this is the new economy, this is the future, and we believe this is something that is going to boost our economy.” “The big idea is to become one of the top jurisdictions in the world for crypto companies,” said Alexander Bornyakov, deputy minister at the 2-year-old Ministry of Digital Transformation. In early September, the Parliament here passed a law legalizing and regulating Bitcoin, step one in an ambitious campaign to both mainstream the nation’s thriving trade in crypto and to rebrand the entire country. The anything-goes ethos has dogged Ukraine for years, and now the government is hoping to bury it, with an assist from cryptocurrency.

“If you are not connected, it will cost you more.” “In this country, you can kill a person and you will not go to jail, if you have enough money and you’re connected,” he said, sipping tea on a plush leather sofa. To him, his native country is a terrific place to run a business, as long as you have the nerve to navigate a system rife with corruption.Ĭhief among the upsides, he explains in his office overlooking the Dnieper River, is the sort of freedom not seen in developed nations for hundreds of years. He is the founder of Kuna, one of Eastern Europe’s first cryptocurrency exchanges.

KYIV, Ukraine - A buccaneering 37-year-old educated in a British private school, Michael Chobanian is fluent both in English and the folkways of Ukraine, which he regards as a largely lawless frontier and which he likes to traverse in his black Ferrari 612.

By: David Segal and Ivan 2021 The New York Times Company

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