The WikiLeaks founder is set to travel back home to Australia after pleading guilty to one count of conspiring and disclosing classified information.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is set to return to Australia and plead guilty to a single charge of conspiring and disclosing classified information. The plea deal, which has yet to receive judicial approval, marks a significant development in the protracted legal battle between the Australian activist and the U.S. government.
As per Reuters, which cites filings in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, Assange faces a sentence of 62 months, though it’s unlikely he will serve additional time, given that he has already spent an equivalent period at Belmarsh Prison in the U.K. WikiLeaks confirmed via an X post on Jun. 25 that Assange “left Belmarsh maximum security prison” after spending over 1,900 days there.
Founded in 2010, WikiLeaks hit the headlines for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. military documents related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2017, the organization published documents exposing how Russia uses state surveillance to spy on the Internet and cellphone users.
The plea deal follows the February conviction of former CIA software engineer Joshua Adam Schulte, who was sentenced to 480 months for espionage, computer hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI, and child pornography. Schulte’s crimes included leaking the largest cache of classified data to WikiLeaks.
“The swarm is headed towards us”
The WikiLeaks’ journey intersects with the world of cryptocurrency, particularly Bitcoin. At one point, Assange sought to raise funds in BTC after VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Amazon, and other financial companies started denying payments to WikiLeaks.
In a 2014 Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session, Assange recalled Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto‘s opposition to WikiLeaks using the nascent crypto in 2010. At the time, Nakamoto expressed concern that association with WikiLeaks could overwhelm Bitcoin in its infancy.
“I make this appeal to WikiLeaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage.”
Satoshi Nakamoto
A few days later, before mysteriously vanishing, Nakamoto emphasized his stance on the potential fallout from the WikiLeaks-cryptocurrency association, stating, “WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet’s nest, and the swarm is headed towards us.” Despite this, Assange still invested in Bitcoin, reportedly making a 50,000% return. The current extent of his Bitcoin holdings remains unclear.
One way or the other, The crypto community found a way to connect cryptocurrency to Assange’s story. Following a 2021 U.K. High Court ruling allowing Assange’s extradition, his supporters formed a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) called AssangeDAO to advocate for his release. The campaign raised over 17,400 ETH, with contributions from notable crypto figures like Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
However, later on, AssangeDAO later faced scrutiny over transparency issues, as blockchain analytics firm SlowMist identified suspicious transaction patterns suggestive of a “soft rug pull.”