Wikileaks’ bitcoin address has received a deluge of support following founding editor Julian Assange’s arrest. Donations have reached nearly $32,000 on Friday, 60% more than was raised the day before, when Assange was taken into custody.
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BTC Donations Reach $32,000
More than 6.3 BTC worth of donations to Wikileaks has been recorded from 272 transactions at the time of going to press. About $20,000 of donations poured in on April 11, when police dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he had been holed up for the past seven years. In 2016, Wikileaks’ bitcoin address reached a milestone of 4,000 BTC, five years after turning to cryptocurrency to avert financial censorship.
In addition to bitcoin, the whistleblowing website is accepting donations through different fiat and crypto mediums listed on its Courage Foundation page. Data from the other payment formats is not immediately available but bitcoin donations sizeably spiked after Wikileaks embedded its address in its Twitter announcement of the arrest of its former editor on Thursday. Celebrities including Pamela Anderson also urged the public to show their support for Assange.
Bitcoin and Wikileaks go back to 2011 when the cryptocurrency kept financial assistance flowing to the guerrilla publisher after Paypal, Mastercard, Visa and Bank of America disabled services to Wikileaks under political pressure from the U.S. In return, bitcoin, then newly incepted, enjoyed international attention for the Wikileaks association. Ecuador, which had granted asylum to Assange, revoked it on Thursday and invited the London police to arrest him.
The South American country’s desire to curry favor with the U.S. are seen as having influenced the decision to give Assange up
