Dedicated to restoring Assange’s freedom, AssangeDAO started its fundraising on February 3. Less than a week later, it has concluded its efforts after managing to rake in 17,422 Ether from 10,000 users.
The newly-formed AssangeDAO’s mission was to raise enough funds to help free Julian Assange. It aimed to acquire ETH in return for the JUSTICE governance token to bid on a 1/1 NFT. The NFT in question was made by well-known digital artist Pak in collaboration with 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 $55 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.”
As reported by CryptoPotato earlier, the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) raised more than $38 million in ETH by February 7 before adding almost $15 million in two more days. It also became the largest JuiceBox DAO raise in history after surpassing that of the now-defunct ConstitutionDAO.
Among many notable contributions, AssangeDAO also pulled in around $31k or 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.
In 2021, the Wikileaks founder lost a major legal battle after a British court ruled that he could be extradited to the United States to face a trial over the publication of hundreds of thousands of classified military documents and diplomatic cables in 2010 and 2011.
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.
Featured Image Courtesy of Sky News