Julian Assange Gets A Mysterious Bitcoin Donation Worth IDR 8 Billion

Julian Assange received a mysterious Bitcoin donation worth IDR 8 billion (Photo; Doc. Youtube)

JAKARTA - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange received a Bitcoin donation worth 500,000 US Dollars (approximately IDR 8 billion) from a mysterious donor on Tuesday. This donation came just after Assange was released from Belmarsh's top security prison in the UK on Monday, after reaching an acknowledgment agreement with US authorities after five years behind bars.

According to blockchain data, donations of 8.2 BTC (492,254 US Dollars or around Rp. 8 billion) were transferred from the multisignature wallet to the Bitcoin Assange donation address, as displayed on the freeassange.org site. On Wednesday morning, the wife of WikiLeaks founder Stella Assange urged her followers to provide their final financial support, by collecting 520,000 US Dollars (approximately Rp. 8.5 billion) to pay off debts to the Australian government. Assange was barred from using commercial flights for a trip to Saipan for a court appearance, and then returned to Australia, thus requiring money to use charter VJ199 flights for his trip.

Although the Assange family managed to raise more than 78% of their target funding through Crowdfunder on Wednesday, Bitcoin donations received on Tuesday almost covered all the debt costs.

Assange came out as a free person after pleading guilty in court on a counts of espionage on Wednesday, and has since returned to his home in Australia. Judge target Manglona noted that Assange's actions did not lead to a "real physical loss" after his confession.

Two people seem to be subtle, although indirectly claiming credit for the donation. One of them is internet figure Andrew Tate, who replied with a gift emoji to someone who paid attention to the transaction on Twitter.

The online Bitcoin community is more skeptical of Tate's claims, calling for him to sign a transaction privately to prove his control over the sender's address. However, observers then pay attention to subtle claims from other rich figures with much deeper roots in the Bitcoin community.

Safe passage through, tweeted Twitter founder Jack Dorsey on Tuesday at 5:03 p.m. ET the right time when transactions were sent via on-chain.

According to CryptoPotato information, Dorsey's company Block leads various Bitcoin infrastructure initiatives. This includes novice multisignature wallet vendors, mining chip manufacturers, and platforms to buy Bitcoin CashApp. He also repeatedly donated money to Bitcoin developers, and kept BTC on the balance sheet of his company.