Report said that the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) supporting Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s legal plight has concluded its raise, generating a whopping 17,422 Ether (ETH), worth around $53.7 million.
As previously reported, 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.
It has been reported that the proceeds of the sale will go towards Assange’s defense fund and additional awareness campaigns as he fights extradition to the United States this month. Assange has been languishing in a United Kingdom jail for the past three years, with US prosecutors seeking to try him on espionage charges. Supporters say that Assange is a whistleblower, journalist, and publisher.
However, as of February 9, 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 Wednesday. The NFT collection was launched on Monday, which was also the deadline for Assange’s lawyers to plead their case against his extradition.
The report said that 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.
Likewise, more than 10,000 people backed the fundraiser, showing strong support for Assange and the values around transparency for which he and Wikileaks stands. 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.
They said:
“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.”
Thus, 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.
Source: Cointelegraph