AssangeDAO concludes raise with $53M to help Julian fight for freedom

The Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) supporting Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s legal plight has concluded its raise, generating a whooping 17,422 Ether (ETH) worth roughly $53.7 million.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the AssangeDAO intends to use the fund to bid on a one-of-one NFT from a drop called “Censored” by digital artist Pak in collaboration with Assange. The proceeds of the sale will go towards Assange’s defense fund and additional awareness campaigns as he fights extradition to the U.S. this month.

Assange has been languishing in a U.K. jail for the past three years, with U.S. prosecutors seeking to try him on espionage charges. Supporters say that Assange is a whistleblower, journalist and publisher.

BREAKING: Almost US $55m ($54.2m/ 17,422 ETH) raised by over 10,000 @AssangeDAO contributors in defense of #WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange at end of funding cycleFund now available for bidding on the @muratpak'Clock' auction:https://t.co/d0vHsPWhkA

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2022

At the time of writing, Pak and Assange’s “One Thousand Thirty Four” one-of-one NFT has a current top bid of 4,242.42 Ether ($13 million) with the auction set to close later today. The NFT collection was launched on Feb. 7, which was also the deadline for Assange’s lawyers to plead their case against his extradition.

The Assange DAO’s $53.7 million figure marks the largest ever raise from a DAO using the community funding hosting platform Juicebox, ousting the widely popular ConstitutionDAO which raised $49 million from the community in late 2021 to bid on a copy of the 1st edition print copy of the United States Constitution.

More than 10,000 people backed the fundraiser, showing strong support for Assange and the values around transparency that he and Wikileaks stands for.

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

— Martin Köppelmann (@koeppelmann) February 4, 2022

Pak spoke to Artnet earlier this week, and outlined that Assange’s cause was precisely what they were looking for as the message behind their latest drop:

“I am in love with creating different mechanisms to communicate my messages. For ‘Censored,’ the drop needed a good reason to exist and Julian was just the perfect fit.”

“The biggest message is censored as usual,” they added.

Related: Wonderland’s treasury saga exposes the fragility of DAO projects today

The Censored drop also includes an open edition with unlimited mints within a specific time frame, and Pak stated that the proceeds will be donated to “information freedom, digital privacy, education, health, and human and animal rights” organizations.

“In other words, everything that is censored eventually returns to the people,” they said.