Crypto, Web3 Communities in Israel Establish Aid Fund

Crypto and web. Three communities in Israel are raising funds for Israeli citizens who have been displaced and in need of humanitarian aid due to the outbreak of war with Hamas. Joining us now to discuss is market across Vice president of Pr and Communications Oran Tal along with Ben Samoa, the founder and CEO of Crypto Jungle. Welcome, Oran and Ben. Hi. Thank you. Uh Before we discuss what's going on uh with Crypto aid Israel, uh you know, le le let's get a sense of what exactly is happening uh for you guys. Uh you know, pretty much everybody has been impacted in Israel in some way. It's either a friend, a friend of a friend, et cetera. It's the biggest, small country. Uh It's the smallest, big country if you will uh out there. Um What, you know, how are you guys doing in, in, in respect and also you, you're both of uh of uh you know, I would say conscription age if you will uh have you been called up for reserves yet? Uh I can say for myself personally, I haven't, but I do have a lot of friends who have uh and I think it safe to, to assume that for a lot of uh, companies in the crypto and start up sector, a lot of the workforce probably has been called up. Um And yeah, I think the, the brunt of, of perhaps like the shift in what's going on right now is that a lot of employees are also like deciding on their own to go and donate or even support families who lost someone either in the fighting or uh or during missile attacks. Um So there's a lot of that going on. Um It's, it's very weird actually. I mean, we've found ourselves here market across uh you know, pitching even coin desk or any other media outlet and then also running for cover, it's a bit realistic. Um I'll say that, hey, Ben, yeah, I think we're just still not comprehending the scale uh and the horrors that we are going through as people. Uh So while official numbers speak now of uh 1300 dead and at least 1300 dead and uh uh more than 3000 wounded, more than 150 kidnapped, uh We expect the numbers to be larger than that. And as you said, uh it impacts every single one of us. Uh I have employees with uh their cousins kidnapped or dead. I have uh my best friends uh fighting in the north or in the Gaza Strip. I have uh it's like all around us. Uh uh And that's why it's, despite the fact that we have 4300 reservists being called to the, to the army and I'm not among them. Uh, um, everybody's fighting here. Uh, you have in essentially every mall. Uh, you have donation centers where people come together and start making boxes to the soldiers and helping the people of the south, uh, find shelter away from the bombings and the, the terror attacks cause they still try to infiltrate and they have uh an hour ago as well. Um And yeah, it's, it's uh it's astonishing uh the fact that we are facing this kind of situation facing this kind of terror. Uh They came in for a single cause and that is not to conquer terrorists, conquer land or uh fight for freedom or whatever we want to attribute to them. They came to murder babies and Children while they're sleeping and to kidnap elderly and women and they've done so in the most horrific way possible and you don't have to trust me or what I say for that. You can see the videos yourself and how horrible they are and how unimaginable uh the things the families that go through right now. So it's very tough. So crypto aid Israel uh explain a little bit about what it is, how it works and who's impacted and who will be given donations. You know, as you mentioned, there are a lot of displaced families in the South. Uh whole evacuations. I think SID was uh was evacuated. T you know, a bunch of cities surrounding Gaza have been evacuated, leading to uh people being homeless or trying to find shelter in the north or in the middle, in, in uh in Tel Aviv. And the like. So what exactly is, how, how is aid going out to people who's getting, who, who's benefiting here? Yeah, of course. So basically crypto Israel is a nonprofit as a whole. Uh We are all volunteers, a community of volunteers. Uh It started out with four people. Within an hour, it was more than 100 and within three days, it was more than 300 people uh working in the crypto space or uh uh contributing from abroad. Uh Whether if it's uh to, to do marketing and to help with the website and with cybersecurity and with uh uh fundraising and donations and uh talking to the nonprofits and to families of individuals uh uh in the South or in other places in the country uh to understand who we want to help and how do we do it uh the right way. Uh We have joined forces with many large organizations in Israel uh such as market across who has been a major contributor to our cause fire blocks, who are providing us the Embassy solutions to manage the crypto uh bits of gold. Uh and Nylo s who are helping us uh uh liquidate the funds and many many other companies that have contributed a lot of resources to make this happen and to make this happen fast swift. And with the involvement also and the knowledge of uh government agencies to make sure that we do everything align uh with what they want to be in terms of how we make decisions to uh where the funds go. So we set up four goals to where the money uh needs to go First is to help the people of the South rebuild their lives. It starts with the basic things of food, shelter, and uh hygiene products, et cetera. Uh um And it continues to the second goal, which is medical equipment. Third is to support the families of the missing and the dead and the kidnapped and the fourth is to help the families, uh especially families of uh reservists uh uh that the wife or the woman is left alone with the kid. Uh which is usually what happens in this kind of situation. We have an abrupt uh uh explosion of uh drafting to the army. So people really are just went and within two hours uh were already given their weapons and their uniform and uh uh uh were sent to battle. Uh So we want to support them so far, we have managed to raise the 500,000 shekels, which is uh almost $130,000. Uh And actually this morning, we sent out the first donation uh it's been attributed to three major uh nonprofits. Uh The first one which received the largest donation, $15,000 is the foundation for the regional Council office call. Uh Essentially they really, really need to evacuate uh uh people from 11 settlements that at least for the moment don't get any government support. Uh So the funds will go to support uh transport and shelter uh to get them out of the conflict zone, which has been declared a military zone. Um The second is Zaka. Zaka is an organ, an organization that helps with uh medical uh support on the ground and unfortunately, with identifying the bodies and the horrors that we see there, uh which as they say, it's the worst they've ever seen and they've been to every terror attack scene in the last 40 something years. Uh So we are sending them uh uh almost $10,000 for uh ceramic equipment so that they'll be safe when they go to the ground and 15,000 shekels, which is around uh $4000 for levi had one heart, which is an organization that provides uh food hygiene, et cetera for the people of the South uh that they are still in the conflict zone and they need that support. And uh we just have a little bit of time left. But can you just quickly explain um one of you, whoever wants to explain, like what the um what the use case specifically of crypto is here. Why crypto donations are more effective than other forms of donations? Go ahead. Ben. I think you got it. Yeah. So basically, I think we are all all here because we understand that that crypto and money as a whole is a tool. It's a tool that can be used for good and it can be used for bad as we know very well that Hamas knows how to do it and North Korea knows how to do it. Uh We choose to use the peer to peer global money that allows you to send money everywhere you want. Uh uh whenever you want uh without a middle man in between to do it as fast as possible. Uh We know that there are many Israel supporters all over the world and especially within the crypto community. We've seen that very well uh in the Ukraine conflict where they were able to raise uh tens of millions of dollars. And uh we hope to achieve the same goals. Obviously, we don't uh uh expect to be there and we do, we just hope and we'll do our best to be there. Uh But it's another way to have financial inclusion, but this time for uh supporting people who need it the most in these to these times. Uh um And yeah, that, that's the reason or, and Ben, we're gonna have to leave it there. Thank you very much for joining the show. Given what's happening around you and our thoughts, love and prayers are with you both and your family and friends. Thank you. Appreciate it. That was orient tal from market across and Ben Samoa from Crypto Jungle.