DeFi
“A huge win for crypto” – DL News
- Julian Assange has accepted a plea deal that grants him freedom.
- Assange DAO had already raised $53 million to help the WikiLeaks founder.
Members of AssangeDAO, a collective created in early 2022 that has raised millions to fund Julian Assange’s legal defense, say the plea deal between the WikiLeaks founder and US authorities could not have been reached without them .
“[It’s] a huge win for crypto,” said Harry Halpin, co-founder of AssangeDAO and CEO of Nym Technologies. DL News.
“I do not believe Julian would be free if the US government did not know that Julian had enough censorship-resistant cryptocurrencies to fund his legal battles indefinitely.”
Assange reached a plea deal with US authorities on Monday, allowing him to walk free after more than five years of incarceration in the UK. The deal follows a 14-year legal battle waged by Assange after he allegedly published classified US military data on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As of February 2022, AssangeDAO raised some 16,593 Ether worth approximately $53 million by selling JUSTICE tokens.
Assets like Bitcoin and Ether cannot be frozen, making them the preferred choice for those who want to avoid government control.
US authorities have charged Assange with 18 counts of violating the US Espionage Act. Assange agreed to a deal in which he would plead guilty to a single charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defense documents.
The terms of the agreement provided for the immediate release of Assange.
Join the community to receive our latest stories and updates
Raise funds
On chain recordings AssangeDAO sent all collected cryptocurrencies to the Wau Holland Foundation, a German non-profit organization that has been accepting donations on behalf of Assange and WikiLeaks since 2009.
It is unclear, however, exactly how much of the $53 million was spent to help Assange’s case.
Halpin said the crypto raised by AssangeDAO was the “primary funding used to pay lawyers and lobbyists to fight for Assange’s freedom.”
According to Silke Noa, a lawyer and one of the founding members of Assange DAO, the Wau Holland Foundation has not yet published documents detailing its expenses.
“There may have been reasons not to be fully transparent at the time, so as not to harm the legal campaign,” Noa said. DL News.
She added, however, that the foundation is “closely regulated” and there is no reason to believe the funds were squandered in any way.
Onchain records show that more than 11,000 Ether out of the 16,593 donated to the Wau Holland Foundation have left the nonprofit’s wallet since it received the sum.
In May 2023, the foundation submitted an application Disclosure Form LD-2 showing that she hired and paid $600,000 to the law firm Squire Patton Boggs to lobby the US Department of Justice on behalf of Julian Assange.
“Julian trusted Wau Holland 100 percent and I am sure they are preparing to both pay lawyers and diversify their funds,” Halpin said.
AssangeDAO had to get creative to ensure that the funds raised reached the foundation.
First, AssangeDAO raised funds through Juicebox, a programmable crypto financing platform. Juicebox kept 5% of the money raised.
The remainder was used to bid on an NFT created by the Turkish digital artist formerly known as Murat Pak, known for his record NFT sales. Pak then donated the funds directly to Wau Holland.
Noa said this structure “guaranteed that the anonymous funds would be bankable and could be used to pay Assange’s legal costs”.
And after?
Now that AssangeDAO has achieved its main goal, the cooperative risks finding itself aimless.
Halpin said he did not know what the DAO’s plans were, but said he would invite Assange to join in due course.
Noa said that now that Assange had been released, the DAO could be more open about the challenges it faced in funding the Wikileaks founder’s defense.
But, she says, that story will have to wait.
“This will only undermine the success achieved today in helping to free Julian,” she said.
Tim Craig is DL News’ DeFi correspondent based in Edinburgh. Contact him with advice at tim@dlnews.com.