Julian Assange Bitcoin donation shows how crypto supports transparency

WikiLeaks founder and prominent free speech advocate Julian Assange has strong ties to the Bitcoin community.

He and WikiLeaks have benefited from Bitcoin (BTC)'s unique features as a cryptocurrency as well as its active community.

Assange and WikiLeaks have played a vital role in increasing the importance of Bitcoin, the symbiotic relationship is mutually beneficial and has contributed to the existence and growth of Bitcoin and WikiLeaks.

On June 25, Assange won his freedom after a 14-year legal battle in which he was imprisoned for five years. The dispute ended when Assange agreed to a plea deal with US authorities to avoid extradition to the US and receive credit for time served in the UK, eventually leading to his release from prison.

The Bitcoin community strongly supported WikiLeaks and its founder because they share similar goals, Joshua Bate, founder of DeSciWorld and core member of AssangeDAO, explained to Cointelegraph. “They are closely related and both are dangerous to a dictatorship,” he said.

“WikiLeaks enables the free exchange of information,” Baty said. [and] Bitcoin allows more free exchange of value. So “Both WikiLeaks and Bitcoin Fight Censorship. As a result, Assange has received continued support from the Bitcoin community throughout his legal battle.

The latest testament to this solidarity is an anonymous donation of 8 BTC, which covered almost all of Assange's $520,000 debt to return to Australia.

No airline would accept Assange as a passenger, so he used a private jet to return to Australia. Assange's wife Stella appealed for urgent help to cover the cost of the plane.

A few hours later, the BTC donation allowed Assange to land debt-free in Australia.

Assange kept Bitcoin as Satoshi Nakamoto asked

WikiLeaks Although it was founded in 2006, He didn't become a significant part of journalism until 2010, when he released the infamous “Collateral Killing” video. The footage shows a US military helicopter shooting down 18 civilians in Baghdad, including two Iraqi Reuters journalists.

The video brought a lot of attention to WikiLeaks, which eventually led to a wide-ranging effort by US and British authorities to shut down the nonprofit organization.

Under the administration of US President Barack Obama, the US State Department classified WikiLeaks' activities as illegal. The move triggered a WikiLeaks financial embargo that includes PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, Bank of America and Western Union, affecting aid and threatening its existence.

WikiLeaks was desperate to find a way to donate, especially without being screened by governments. In the year On November 10, 2010, a Bitcoin developer contacted WikiLeaks to offer the cryptocurrency as a payment method.

However, Bitcoin Anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto pleaded not to use WikiLeaks to donate BTC.

Nakamoto believed the software was still in its infancy, and that his relationship with WikiLeaks would give encryption undue attention.

In the year In 2014, Assange admitted to accepting Nakamoto's request to refrain from using bitcoin until it was “more established.”

However, an article in PC World revealed WikiLeaks' intention to accept Bitcoin. The sudden attention given to Bitcoin did not please Nakamoto as he believed it could endanger the network. On December 11, 2010, Nakamoto posted on the Bitcoin Talk forum:

“WikiLeaks kicked the hornet's nest, and the swarm is heading our way.”

“He kept his promise, but Nakamoto left the project shortly after Bitcoin became more popular,” Assange said.

Assange and WikiLeaks continued to struggle financially and had no fundraising options. In June 2011, WikiLeaks had no choice but to break the financial embargo by setting up a Bitcoin address to accept BTC donations. This move will be a decisive decision for the survival of WikiLeaks.

Bitcoin's unfiltered nature has helped propel WikiLeaks, allowing funds to flow in at the risk of being hacked or intercepted.

The organization received 171 BTC in the first week and a secure fundraising channel was created which is still active today.

Overnight, WikiLeaks showed a clear use case for Bitcoin.

The charity's decision to accept Bitcoin donations turned out to be one of the best decisions it ever made.

While Assange has been embroiled in ongoing legal battles, the US government has surprisingly praised him for the bank freeze, with WikiLeaks admitting to receiving bitcoins in return.

In the year On October 14, 2017, Assange said that he and WikiLeaks have benefited from a 50,000% return on their Bitcoin money. The company received 4,000 BTC at that time. Months later, the 2017 bull market saw Bitcoin open to $20,000.

Was it all worth it for Assange?

Assange and his family have suffered tremendously in maintaining freedom of speech.

In the year In August 2010, after the WikiLeaks high-profile revelations, Swedish authorities issued an arrest warrant for Assange on sexual misconduct charges.

Assange fled Sweden and sought asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Assange has not been able to leave the Ecuadorian embassy compound for seven years. A change in Ecuador's leadership prompted the lifting of Assange's asylum.

British authorities arrested the hijacker and held him for five years at Belmarsh, a maximum-security prison in the country's so-called Guantanamo Bay.

Assange continued to be extradited to the United States, where he could face severe punishment. Like other whistleblowers, such as Edward Snowden, Assange's life changed dramatically after exposing sensitive government secrets.

Was Assange's struggle worth it?

NIM CEO and AssangeDAO member Harry Halpin told Cointelegraph that he believes society may not have learned enough from Assange's struggle.

But thanks to Assange's efforts, he says, war crimes and suppression of the truth are daily topics in parliamentary debates, daytime TV and YouTube podcasts.

“Ultimately, we should use Julian's partial victory as a catalyst to create more powerful structures of communication and resistance.”

Since arriving in Australia, Assange has sought to stay out of the spotlight and enjoy privacy. His wife, Stella, said the WikiLeaks founder plans to “enjoy his freedom” until then, urging journalists to press the US government to release details of the criminal charges against her husband.

As she said in a recent statement, one of the conditions of the plea deal with US authorities is that “Julian is not allowed to make freedom of information requests.” [or] Make information requests [to] US Government”.

However, she stressed that other citizens still have this power and urged the public to press US officials to explain their actions.