Bitcoin whale donates 8 BTC to Julian Assange, covers private jet costs

Key Insights

• Assange's return to Australia was funded by an 8 BTC donation valued at around $492,000.
• The donation covered the private jet costs and was part of over £300,000 received in various currencies.

A Bitcoin (BTC) whale donated 8 BTC to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as reported by Altana Digital Currency Fund Alistair Milne. At the time of writing, the donation is worth roughly $492,000, which is enough to cover the costs of the jet Assange used to return to Australia from the UK.

“Assange will therefore arrive in Australia debt free thanks in large part to the generosity of a single Bitcoin whale,” highlighted Milne. On top of the BTC donation, the WikiLeaks founder also received over £300,000 in donations paid with fiat currencies.

The whale donation accounts for nearly all the amount received by Assange’s Bitcoin wallet, which now has ‎8.1173865 BTC, according to on-chain data explorer mempool.space .

Assange was released after pleading guilty to unlawfully obtaining and disclosing “classified documents relating to the national defense,” as reported by Bloomberg. He has been unable to return to Australia since 2012 when he broke his bail conceded by the UK authorities and sought refuge in an Ecuadorian embassy. 

In April 2019, after a series of back-and-forths with Ecuadorian authorities, Assange’s asylum was lifted and he became incarcerated in London until he was released this week. Assange’s lawyer, Barry J Pollack, told journalists in Canberra that plans for a deal with the US government had seemed to be going nowhere until the past month, Bloomberg added. 

“We were not close to any sort of a resolution until a few weeks ago, when the Department of Justice reengaged, and there have been very tense negotiations over the past few weeks,” he said.