AssangeDAO Has Pooled 17,422 ETH Worth $56M To Cover Legal Fees
AssangeDAO has secured 17,422 ETH worth $56 million to support Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s legal fees to battle an extradition to the U.S. from a prison in London.
Founded in early February 2022, AssangeDAO has embarked on a mission to raise capital and pay for the legal fees related to the case of Julian Assange. The WikiLeaks founder founds asylum for several years at the Ecuadorian Embassy in the United Kingdom, trying to avoid extradition to the U.S.
AssangeDAO’s mission is to raise enough funds to help free Julian Assange. The DAO aims to raise ETH in return for the $JUSTICE governance token to bid on a 1/1 NFT produced by digital artist Pak in collaboration with Julian Assange.
The proceeds raised from its sale are expected to benefit Assange’s defense fund in terms of legal fees and campaigning to raise awareness about his extradition case. As per the data from Juicebox, the funds generated now stand at around $56 million.
The website dedicated to the DAO stated:
“AssangeDAO intends to raise capital to bid on Assange’s NFT. By galvanizing an Assange solidarity network we hope to send a powerful signal that the time of passivity is over. A new era of cypherpunk organization has dawned.”
By February 7, the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) had raised more than $38 million in ETH, before adding almost $18 million in just few days. It also became the largest JuiceBox DAO raise in history after surpassing that of the now-defunct ConstitutionDAO.
Among the contributions, AssangeDAO received 10 ETH from Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin. Co-Founder and CEO at Gnosis Martin Köppelmann also revealed contributing 10 ETH to the movement last week. AssangeDAO was inspired by the FreeRossDAO, created to free the creator of the darknet market website Silk Road Ross Ulbricht, and ended up raising $12 million.
Just contributed 10 ETH to @AssangeDAO. It is a disgrace for our society that exposing war crimes condemns you to rot in prison. pic.twitter.com/ZNWUTVuRFe
In December, the U.S. government won an appeal in London’s High Court meaning Assange was a step closer to being extradited from Britain to the United States. Assange is wanted by U.S. authorities over the publication of hundreds of thousands of classified military documents and diplomatic cables in 2010 and 2011.
Assange, an Australian citizen, has been held in the U.K.’s Belmarsh prison since 2019. He previously spent several years in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid being extradited to Sweden on sex crime accusations, which since then have been dropped.
In a major relief for the Australian national, the UK High Court ruled that Assange will be able to challenge the decision of him being extradited to the US on espionage charges where he faces a 175-year prison sentence. Assange can now appeal to the country’s Supreme Court.
