Julian Assange collaborated with a crypto artist named Pak to sell his collection of NFTs.
London: Bids reached more than $50 million Wednesday at an online auction of digital art to raise money for the legal defense of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Assange is battling extradition from Britain to the United States, where officials want him to face 18 criminal charges, including breaking espionage laws, when WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables in 2010.
Last month, Assange, who was jailed in London, was given the opportunity to challenge the approval of his extradition in Britain’s highest court. The Supreme Court will now decide whether to hear his case or not.
Assange collaborated with a crypto artist named Pak to sell a collection of NFTs (fungible tokens) called Censor in an online auction from 7-9 February to help raise funds to support his case.
NFTs are a type of crypto asset that uses blockchain to record the ownership status of digital files such as images, videos and even items within online games.
The centerpiece of the auction is an NFT artifact, the Clock, which depicts how many days Assange has been imprisoned in white text on a black background. It is updated every day.
Bids on Clock NFT stood at 16,593 Ether, which is down from $52 million as of 1115 GMT on Wednesday.
The bid was made by Assange’s supporters who formed a group called AssangeDAO to bid collectively on the NFT.
A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is a type of online community that allows members to deposit their money and use a blockchain-based token to vote on decisions about how it is run.
According to crowdfunding website Juicebox, AssangeDAO has raised 17,422 — about $54.6 million — of cryptocurrency ether since February 2. More than 10,000 people contributed to this fund.
“It’s thousands of people coming together to show the real strength – the power of the people,” Joshua Bate, the head of the AssangeDAO community, said in a Discord post announcing the bid. “In less than a week, we have shown that decentralized and distributed people can unite to fight injustice.”
The group said proceeds from the sale of the clock will go to support Assange’s legal defense.
The auction closes at 1400 GMT. If AssangeDAO loses the auction, those who have paid to The DAO will have the option of withdrawing their funds, the AssangeDAO website said.
Censored Auctions allows supporters to create their own NFTs, choose an amount to pay and type in a short message that turns into an image showing the words, such as Censored. has been done.
Supporters thus raised more than 587 ether ($1.8 million), creating 27,875 “censored” messages, with the proceeds going to pro-independence organizations chosen by Assange and Pak.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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