By The founder of Wikileaks and early adopter of Bitcoin, Julian Assange, was arrested outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London yesterday and subsequently faces extradition to the USA on charges of conspiracy.
Assange spent the last seven years seeking asylum at the embassy but the founder of Wikileaks finally lost the support of the Ecuadorian government. He was arrested on April 11, for failing to appear in court in Britain. Initially, he was in hiding due to a warrant for his arrest from Swedish authorities over an alleged sexual assault charge, which is totally unrelated to his Wikileaks ties but these charges have since been dropped. However, the British government still arrested him for his failure to appear in court for the charges.
The glaring elephant in the room, however, for this prosecution is the US government’s involvement as the federal authorities seem to be pursuing him with a mere single charge of conspiracy to commit computer hacking. Law enforcement has made his arrest a consistent priority as part of their campaign against the whistleblowers at Wikileaks and their war on terror.
The Wikileaks/Bitcoin Connection:
It’s common knowledge that Assange has long been a supporter of the Bitcoin community due to the crypto asset’s ability to bypass international crackdowns of this nature. Following PayPal’s banning of-of users sending donations to Wikileaks, Assange began accepting donations in Bitcoin as his primary vehicle of funding in 2011.
Thus Wikileaks became one of the first major institutions to begin accepting the crypto asset which of course brought about major international press coverage to the at the time, young crypto community.
Since Wikileaks first accepted the world’s first cryptocurrency, the site has garnered massive amounts of Bitcoin over the last eight years. Back in 2016, the website’s public donation address reached a record-breaking milestone of 4,000 bitcoin which is, of course, worth millions of USD. Despite Coinbase ceasing its support of Wikileaks online shop back in 2018, the site continues to see sales booming with bitcoin donations still pouring in.
With the US government’s relentless pursuit of Assange and other whistleblowers, the founder of Wikileaks future upon extradition seems ominous. Chelsea Manning, the vet who provided Assange with the leaked proof of U.S war crimes, had her sentence mitigated back when Obama was president, however, she was sent back to prison and solitary confinement after she declined to testify against Assange earlier this year.
Edward Snowden, a fellow whistleblower who’s currently in hiding in Russia called Assange’s arrest “a dark moment for press freedom.”
Notably, Assange’s arrest has already seen resistance from the crypto community, as the Wikileaks website has seen a large spike in bitcoin donations from a myriad of sources. However, the whistleblower’s upcoming trial on US soil is definitely going to happen this time.
Comments