In June, AtomicLab won the ‘Coding Challenge for Ukraine’ hackathon, organised by the European Commission in cooperation with the European Digital Finance Association and the Ukrainian Association of FinTech and Innovation Companies. The team’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) project, Restore Together, is a fundraising platform using decentralized finance, or DeFi, set up to support Ukrainian infrastructure and cultural heritage. Founders Volodymyr Buina and Anastasiia Veremenko talk about the project, how it came about, and what the next steps are. 

What exactly is Restore Together? What was the motivation behind the project? 

Many buildings and monuments have been affected by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Restore Together was created in May 2022 to support cultural heritage in Ukraine. We have so much great architecture and so many wonderful monuments in our cities that have been either damaged or destroyed – or have had to be covered up to avoid damage. So, our first motivation was to try and do something about restoring these buildings and monuments. But we also had the idea that the project would grow and we would add other categories beyond heritage buildings – for instance, people’s homes, for example to repair broken windows, or zoos, which also need support right now and until the war ends. In general, we work with volunteers – anyone who wants to help us rebuild Ukraine.  

How does it work, from a practical point of view? How can people use it? And did you run into many challenges when building it? 

Basically, what we wanted to do was to bring together people who want to restore something, workers able to do the work needed and who may have lost their jobs, and investors who want to provide financial support for these projects. The main challenge was to create a simple service. So we chose to base it around a map, where you can see all the buildings or monuments. So how does it work? Investors from anywhere in the world can provide financial support and in return they receive a unique non-fungible token (NFT) for each contribution with an image of the thing (e.g. monument, building…) that they have helped repair. ‘Performers’ – for instance companies, private entrepreneurs, charities – can offer their services and provide practical details (time planning, goals, and financial estimates). Many people have been left without any work during the war, so this provides work and income for them. Finally, anybody can upload information about something in need of repair or restoration. We use ‘smart contracts’ on blockchain, where all transactions are clear and publicly visible, so that we are sure that everything is secure and safe. Overall, it works a bit like Airbnb, where you have a list on the left and a map on the right and you can click to get more information about particular projects.

You spoke about NFTs, which is one of the areas that we at FISMA are promoting. Could you tell us about the level of digitalisation in Ukraine and how it could help the country?

Recent statistics show that 12.7% of Ukrainians have cryptocurrencies. So Ukraine actually has a fairly high level of digital knowledge. Our project is useful in the context of the war because it will help people transfer funds, which is difficult during a war because you need to keep money in the country. But if you use cryptocurrency it is easier to help people. In addition, our project has a high level of verification of objects, so investors receive full reports of how their money has been used. And like we said, they receive an NFT when they invest, and then they receive another NFT when the object (monument, building etc.) has been restored. That way they know that their money has been used correctly. 

What are the next steps? 

With our current project we have a collection of 10,000 unique NFTs. Each person who invests will be able to receive an NFT in their blockchain wallet. After this we will ensure that this functionality is working well and then we hope to promote and share this project further. 

Read more about Restore Together and about their current project