Bitcoin Forum

Wikileaks bitcoin donations have spiked due to the recent arrest of Julian Assange:

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/04/11/julian-assange-bitcoin-wikileaks/

While some do not like the association between Wikileaks and bitcoin, this story does highlight the decentralized nature of bitcoin.

No matter how much money they received and how good the lawyer/s they hire it won't matter as long as the evidence is compelling enough to prove him guilty. The thing is of he is really innocent at all he wouldn't be seeking asylum in Ecuador in the first place, it only has dig his grave deeper by hiding out from the government this long. Wikileaks really took advantage of the situation here and they have received a considerable amount to help Assange.

I can't speak about the legitimacy of the charges, but one is innocent until proven guilty in the American court of law. Presumably, Julian Assange is not the only person running Wikileaks, so it may continue to operate in some capacity for the foreseeable future. It will be interesting to see how this plays out and the sentence he may get.

I don't know whether Assange will ever win any cases filed against him, knowing that the court had been chasing him for 7 years now. To effectively silence him, this is what the government will do: arrest him in their own soil in order for him to not make any potential leaks ever again in the future. It's great that people have been donating to WikiLeaks for it to continue its operation, and I know for a fact that the war to bring truth and justice to those who need it doesn't end with Assange's arrest, as there would be other people out there wanting to make this world a better place.

Even if he is actually innocent, if governments are out to take him down, which is actually the case here, they'll come up with all sorts of silly excuses to lock him up for ever. In other words, I'm really of believe that this is the last time we'll ever see him like that again, especially if he's being extradited to the US.

As for the hiding part, what else could he do? His options were; 1) voluntarily getting locked up in prison for ever, or 2) make it more difficult and spend as much time in 'freedom' as possible further working on his mission. I'm quite certain that he is self-aware enough to know that there would be a day where the autorities would arrest him.

7 years! Damn. Just saw the news and was surprised that he had these many charges against him(Molestation, Rape etc) of which some were dropped already while some others are still pending.

I think that the US government have no intentions to ever release him out in the open ever again.

Anyone who reads world history can easily see that making and/or saying the right things has always a price. He has been paying this price for years and unfortunately he will spend a few years in jail. Thanks to him for his greate efforts and dropping masks of many people.

I agree. I'd be shocked if he's ever released - his only hope is a pardon from a president way ahead in the future. It's also surprising it took 7 years to finally nab him.

Too sad hearing the news of arrest.
This guy is one of the fewest in his domain.
I don't think he will get his freedom again. Let's see what was his plans for what was early expected.

It's because the government of Ecuador take him as political asylum seeker, but since they withdraw Julian political asylum status, he was nabbed in the embassy by the UK Police. I think the US is hell bent of getting him into the prison and shut him up for good. Maybe they can used the bitcoin donations for good, but I don't know if it is enough for him to salvage his freedom though.

That is what the governments will do if they don't like people. They try many things to drag those people in their law so they can shut up the noise. I am sure that there will be more Julian Assange that will speak for the truth. Maybe they can arrest of Julian Assange but Wikileaks will still online with another person.

This arrest had zero impact on Bitcoin price. Pump happened before Julian was arrested so an article was made out of nothing.
But the general situation is quite interesting: rape accusation were called back but Julian said that he would be unsafe if he leaves his asylum and refused to leave it, some years later when he finally came out he immediately got arrested. Ba dum... tss...
P.S. By the way this guy looks pretty bad. In his age he looks like 70yr old man.

I am happy he's finally arrested, he's a fake sellout and traitor.

http://www.alternativenewsnetwork.net/wikileaks-rothschild-operation-rothschilds-use-wikileaks-wound-rival-bank/ (http://www.alternativenewsnetwork.net/wikileaks-rothschild-operation-rothschilds-use-wikileaks-wound-rival-bank/)

I can see through the lies in this world.

True. But of course it's an interesting story that the media won't miss.

So far lately it was only about him hiding in the Embassy, the same thing over and over but now things got interesting. Now they will milk it until and after he gets his sentence.

Well a movie already appeared, pretty cool one. Maybe we could see more documentaries, i wonder if we could see another movie about Assange in the future.

I’ve been following the receiving address, he’s got over 6BTC in there, incredible. I hope he doesn’t go to prison :(

The government will find a way to lock him up forever and make an example for future whistle blowers and that is how governments want, to silence everything and everyone who reveal the truth structure on how government function and the leaks had an impact on the global relations between countries without a doubt.

How about the leaks, do you think it is fake and forged, they published the facts and nothing else, i am not getting into his personal life and i am not sure all the charge against him are true, including rape charges.

Julian Assange is a complete confusion. It's hard to understand whether he's good or bad person. Obviously there was intervention in any of the personal areas, and this is unacceptable.

It's not like the authorities are going to let Assange anywhere near an internet connection, though, so I hope for his sake that those funds can actually be put to good use somehow.

IMO, he was a whistle-blower and the charges against him looks cooked up. And just because he has sought asylum in another country, you can't label him as guilty. For example, in 2018 some 613,200 people sought asylum within the European Union. Do you think that all these people are hardcore criminals fleeing from law enforcement?

I'd rather have Assange free than bitcoin donations spike
you can hate or love this guy , but he doesn't deserve to be trialed and risk getting incarcerated for life
now Ecuador succumbed to the pressure :(
rumours have it that Assange's cat was the last straw and his unwillingness to take care of his bathroom
I hope his life is not in danger and he won't get extradited to the US

To be honest, I was surprised to hear that Julian Assange has been arrested a few days ago. He lived in this embassy without walking the streets or parks for so long, and in fact now the government of Ecuador has decided to give him to the UK police.

---

It should be noted that the second-last post of satoshi on the forum was related to Wikileaks:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3;sa=showPosts

---

I do not know whether Julian Assange is a good or bad person, but he is quite famous in the world. I hope that all his rights will be respected.

I noticed the spike few days ago with many unconfirmed transactions on their segwit address.

It's just unfortunate he couldn't disguise himself and escape the embassy to then  seek for asylum or something.

I think Julian Assange did a big service to the world by showing factual proof of how corporations and Govts manipulate narratives. It resulted in shaking up of the "Too big to fail" mentality to quite a large extent.

Now that he has been given up by Ecuador, he'll be up for trial. I do wonder that if the US Courts decide that his whole operation in the form of wikileaks was against national security and a criminal act, would the bitcoin donators be considered as enablers for the crime?  It would take a lot of convoluted logic to do that but you never know, the authorities could try it as a "two birds with one stone" thing.

This is just one of the potential scenarios when anonymity becomes very important and KYC becomes extremely dangerous.

Really its sad for you ?. A guy got arrested due to illegal activity like rape, Molestation, breaching and don't know how much charges on it. No matter who owe him who not, He just did wrong with peoples money and break the law. He deserve it

Nope, you are missing the point here....  Julian Assange exposed a lot of things that the US government wanted to hide from the world. The US government were left red-faced and they are butthurt now, so they will throw everything they have at him. They have to make an example of him now, like they did with Ross Ulbricht with Silkroad.  >:(

Once you go up against the government and you expose their corrupt dealings, they will never stop hunting you. WikiLeaks was the single biggest source of embarresment for the US government for years now.  ;)

Assange is for some reason decided to leave the embassy of Ecuador, maybe 7 years in house arrest it was too much for him. When I say he decides it, I think of his actions against Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno in which some documents have been published on WikiLeaks, where the president is accused of a corruption scandal. Work against somebody who gives you asylum does not make any sense, unless you want someone to quit asylum.

It should also be emphasized that Ecuador is ask from UK that Assange can not be extradited to a country that has a death sentence, which was allegedly approved. In that case the possibility of extradition in USA should not exist, and the procedure itself could last for years.

Fact that Donald Trump say that he do not know nothing about WikiLeaks is very interesting, especially if we look at his previous statements :


So maybe Trump will in some way soften his administration on this issue.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-12/donald-trump-administration-pressing-charges-julian-assange/10995934

Anyone with an IQ of more than 50 is able to understand that those charges are totally cooked up. I pity on you. The real reason why he was arrested was because he exposed the American treachery towards its own allied nations. The CIA was phone-tapping leaders such as Angela Merkel, and Wikileaks exposed this truth to the general public.

It's near impossible to escape when all eyes are literally pointed at you. It wouldn't surprise me if there were agents located very near the building to capture him if there was ever an escape attempt. The risk isn't worth the 'safety' he enjoyed within the embassy. On top of that, every bit if data going in and out of the embassy might be filtered, so even if he uses TOR and whatnot, he always has to assume that whatever he ends up doing, agencies very likely know what's going on.

I'm not necessarily for or against Assange, but it's quite interesting to see how popular he and WikiLeaks are within the Bitcoin ecosystem. The donations they received in Bitcoin throughout the years are mind bogglingly high.

Obviously, this is politically motivated. We all know that the West is really aching to get their hands on Assange for all he has done in exposing them. And I'm sure he will be facing extradition to the US for the supposedly crimes he committed. Ecuador though revokes his asylum status, they said he also try to spy the country that given him asylum,  but we will never known the truth.

I'm speculating that Moreno was elected in 2017, and after two years, they suddenly gave up on Assange. So for me giving him up has something to do with having a strong ties with the West specially US, so there is some politicking behind.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ecuador-rafael-correa-lenin-moreno-strips-wikileaks-julian-assange-asylum-status/

You're wrong, Wikileaks didn't publish the documents. The INA Papers, the documents accusing Lenin of corruption, were published in a website called inapapers(dot)org. Wikileaks only tweeted (a month later) about the allegations of corruptions against Lenin citing the aforementioned website. Hell, the whole thing started because some ecuadorian journalists started digging about Moreno's offshore companies.

Because of this tweet, the Ecuadorian govt assumed it was Wikileaks who leaked the documents and used it as an excuse to expelled Assaled from the ecuadorian embassy, probably to avoid any backlash from the US against Lenin Moreno in case the corruption allegations are true.

Doesn't surprise me a bit. Anyway it confirms my suspicion that Ecuador double crossed on Assange after he refused to compromise on his ethics and principles. Two days back Rafael Correa (the ex-president of Ecuador who had granted asylum to Assange) had criticized the current president Lenín Moreno for handing over Assange to the US authorities. This is actually very surprising because Moreno was Correa's candidate. Correa supported Moreno, because he could not run for the presidential post due to term limits.

no way. various agencies have already opined on the legality of bitcoin payments and the laws surrounding them. wikileaks is a non-profit organization engaged in journalism; they are not a terrorist organization and were not listed as such.

this really sucks for julian. he's in for some ruthless treatment now that he's facing charges in the USA and might actually have to answer to them.

Thanks for that information, it seems that relations between Assange and Ecuador have not been ideal for long time. WikiLeaks is release those hacked documents (e-mails) back in 2016, during US release presidential campaign, and this was something which couse worsening relations between US and Ecuador. It did not help either that Assange is publicly supported the independence of Catalonia, which has caused much criticism from Spain.

I assume that many countries have put great pressure on Ecuador to revoke asylum for Assange, what happened in the end. However, it was unrealistic to expect that someone forever remain closed in one embassy, this had to happen sooner or later.

This is a serious matter and wikileaks takes action on it. They are brave to help the government to finally arrest Julian Assange. In my opinion, Julian will not hide if he really didn't do it. Many people donated in wikileaks because they know how wikileaks leads this case.

a new, unexpected plot twist in Assange's case:
President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani, in an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner, said Julian Assange could expose a "plot" involving Ukraine to falsely accuse Trump of colluding with Russia.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/giuliani-assange-could-expose-that-ukraine-was-behind-false-russia-collusion-charges

he suggested to "keep an eye on Ukraine" , the  second round of the presidential elections taking place on 21 of April and the current president is going to lose
his support rating is at 15% of which some  believe 14% are falsified  :D
so we might hear some interesting revelations after the elections when the new team comes to power

this is the sad reality in our world. if you try to expose the truth and the absolute truth, the people or institutions involved in your expose will make you pay in any form, whatever they want it to be. they will find loopholes and other charges applicable to you, which are not even related to why you come into the limelight. you should know what you are doing and really know yourself before you embark in this kind of mission. otherwise, you will not even know yourself in this process.

Nah. Since none of us were in the bed with them there's no point in attempting to guess what happened, but everything I've read about him points towards him being a monumental prick who wouldn't think he'd done anything wrong. He comes across as a paranoid egotistical power freak user.

I've no doubt that had he not run and hid the initial charges would've been hijacked by the US but the Swedish allegations made against him seem credible with the personality traits countless people have observed.

He was jailed for rape right? I think you are right. If he really isn't guilty, there is no way he is going to flee. He will have to just face the accusations and trial. Or maybe they never really had that intention
The fans of WL just supports them no matter how bad that guy did that crime.