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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange released from prison, how many cryptocurrencies does he own?
The founder of WikiLeaks will return home to Australia after pleading guilty to conspiracy and leaking classified information.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, will return to Australia and plead guilty to a single charge of conspiracy and disclosing classified information. The plea deal, which has yet to receive judicial approval, marks a significant development in the long-running legal battle between the Australian activist and the US government.
As per Reutersciting documents filed in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, Assange faces a 62-month sentence, although he is unlikely to serve any additional time given he has already spent an equivalent amount of time in Belmarsh prison in the UK , as confirmed by WikiLeaks via a June 25 X post stating that Assange “has left Belmarsh maximum security prison” after spending over 1,900 days there.
JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE
Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of June 24, having spent 1,901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released in the afternoon at Stansted Airport, where he boarded a …
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 24, 2024
Founded in 2010, WikiLeaks has made headlines for losses hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2017, the organization published documents exposing how Russia uses state surveillance to spy on the Internet and mobile phone users.
The plea agreement follows that of February belief of former CIA software engineer Joshua Adam Schulte, sentenced to 480 months for espionage, computer hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI and child pornography. Schulte’s crimes included leaking the largest amount of classified data to WikiLeaks.
“The swarm is headed towards us”
WikiLeaks’ journey intersects with the world of cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin. At one point, Assange attempted to raise funds in BTC after VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Amazon, and other financial companies began denying payments to WikiLeaks.
In a 2014 Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session, Assange remembered Creator of Bitcoin Satoshi NakamotoWikiLeaks’ opposition to the use of the nascent cryptocurrency in 2010. At the time, Nakamoto expressed concern that the association with WikiLeaks could overwhelm Bitcoin in its infancy.
“I make this appeal to WikiLeaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You couldn’t bear to get more than a few pennies, and the heat you’d bring would probably destroy us at this stage.
Satoshi Nakamoto
A few days later, before mysteriously disappearing, Nakamoto underlined his stance on the potential fallout from the WikiLeaks-cryptocurrency association, stating: “WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet’s nest and the swarm is heading our way.” Despite this, Assange continued to invest in Bitcoin, reportedly obtaining a return of 50,000%. The current extent of its Bitcoin holdings remains unclear.
One way or another, the crypto community has found a way to connect cryptocurrency to the Assange story. Following a 2021 UK High Court ruling that allowed Assange’s extradition, his supporters formed a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) called AssangeDAO to advocate for his release. Countryside lifted up over 17,400 ETH, with contributions from notable crypto figures such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
However, AssangeDAO later faced scrutiny over transparency issues, such as blockchain analytics firm SlowMist identified patterns of suspicious transactions suggesting a “soft pull.”