The NFT auction of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks which is an international non-profit organization that publishes news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources, has reportedly fetched over $50 million!
The online auction of digital art which was aimed to raise money towards WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's legal defence saw bids reach more than $50 million on Wednesday.
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Assange is considered a hero and champion of government transparency and freedom of the press by some, while others have often condemned him as a dangerous rogue who undermines national security.
Julian has been battling extradition from Britain to the United States, wherein the authorities want him to face trial on as high as 18 criminal charges, including breaking a spying law, after WikiLeaks began to publish thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables in 2010.
Even last month, Assange, who at present remains in a London prison, was given the chance to challenge the approval of his extradition at Britain's highest court. Now the Supreme Court has to decide whether or not to hear his case.
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Julian Assange collaborated with a crypto artist known as Pak to sell a collection of NFTs called ¡®Censored¡¯ in an online auction that was held from February 7th-9th 2022. The auction was aimed to help Julian raise funds to support his case.
The centrepiece of the auction is stated to be an NFT artwork, Clock, which displays the number of days Assange has been imprisoned in white text on a black background. It keeps updating each day.
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Assange supporters had formed a group called AssangeDAO to bid collectively on the NFT. For the uninitiated, Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) is a sort of online community which allows members to pool their money and use blockchain-based tokens to vote on decisions about how it is run.
According to crowdfunding website Juicebox, AssangeDAO raised 17,422 of the cryptocurrency ether, which is around $54.6 million,? since Feb 2nd 2022. More than 10,000 people had reportedly contributed to the fundraiser.
In a Discord post announcing the bid, the AssangeDAO community¡¯s lead Joshua Bate said "This is tens of thousands of people coming together to show real strength - the Power of the People. In less than one week, we have shown that decentralized and distributed peoples can band together to fight injustice.¡±
The group also stated that the proceeds from the sale of Clock will go to support Assange's legal defence.
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