Wikileaks founder Julian Assange walking to board a plane from London, released from a high-security prison where he was held for five years
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange walking to board a plane from London, released from a high-security prison where he was held for five years. AFP

KEY POINTS

  • Some crypto users on X speculated that Twitter founder Jack Dorsey may have been the donor
  • Assange walked free Monday but was not allowed to take commercial flights, as per his wife
  • Stella Assange said the activist owed the Australian government $520K for his private chartered flight
  • Assange's half-brother thanked the crypto community, specifically AssangeDAO, for their support over the years

Controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a free man, and it turns out a single Bitcoin donor covered nearly the entire amount that Assange's family owed the Australian government to fly the activist back home.

A day after Assange was freed from a British prison Monday and flew to American territory to enter his plea, his wife, Stella, requested donations to cover the huge cost that came with the Australian editor's road to freedom.

"He was not permitted to fly commercial airlines or routes to Saipan and onward to Australia. Any contribution big or small is much appreciated," Stella wrote on X (formerly Twitter). She revealed that her husband owes the Australian government $520,000 for his private chartered flight back home.

The website "Free Assange" has provided supporters with links to various donation channels, including links to cryptocurrency wallets.

On-chain data showed that an anonymous crypto donor sent 8.21 BTC Tuesday afternoon to the Bitcoin wallet provided by Stella and the Free Assange website. Bitcoin prices Thursday were at $61,800, which puts the donation's dollar value at over $494,000 when it was sent to the wallet.

The donor's identity remains a mystery, but the gracious donation sparked curiosity among crypto users on X. The social media platform went abuzz after speculation that Twitter founder Jack Dorsey may have been the donor following his "safe passage through" post that was posted at the same time the BTC donation was made.

Other users were just glad Assange's case is over and praised the mysterious donor's help in paying off the flight debt.

Assange has arrived back home in Australia after he pled guilty to a single count of unveiling military secrets, ending a 14-year-long battle with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which had been seeking his extradition for over a decade. His guilty plea included a sentence to time already served behind bars.

The tech entrepreneur and editor published thousands of confidential documents on the WikiLeaks whistleblower website that made him a champion to free speech advocates. However, the DOJ tagged his actions as endangering U.S. security. He cannot return to the U.S. without authorization.

Assange's half-brother, Gabriel Shipton, said Assange wouldn't have survived the legal battle with the U.S. without the generosity of the AssangeDAO community that helped raise money to help him in his fight for freedom. "It was an out-of-the-blue shot from the crypto community that I think took the people who are pursuing Julian totally off-guard. They thought they were successful in bleeding Julian dry, even bleeding our family dry of funds," Shipton said of the crypto community's support.

AssangeDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that helped raise millions worth of Ether (ETH) as part of the efforts to finance Assange's expensive legal fees.

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