WikiLeaks and Bitcoin: a crypto love affair?

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The story of WikiLeaks and its move to Bitcoin is popular among crypto investors. When WikiLeaks first came out, it quickly gained popularity for posting leaked classified information and information on its site. Founded in 2006, the non-profit organization has had an interesting history, one of them being its founder, Julian Assange, who was sent to prison.

Even more interesting is the history of the organization with the major cryptocurrency bitcoins. The anonymous whistleblower platform had taken the wrong side of the government because of the leak of documents containing sensitive and classified military information. The organization that relied heavily on donations had suffered greatly as payment processors like Visa and Mastercard had moved away from the entity.

WikiLeaks turns to Bitcoin

After being cut off from traditional payment methods, WikiLeaks turned to the next best thing. At this point, the organization needed something that couldn’t be tracked or controlled by the government and they turned to bitcoin donations for it. Julian Assange had accused the US government of supporting what he called an “illegal banking blockade” against WikiLeaks, forcing entities like AmEx, Visa, PayPal, etc. to stop supporting the organization.

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According to Assange, this had spurred the entity’s move to bitcoin. Bitcoin was still relatively new at this point. In 2010, when the “blockade” went into effect, BTC was only one year old and still trading at a relatively low level. In the same year, WikiLeaks had started receiving cryptocurrency donations, which were initially just bitcoin, but has since expanded to include other cryptocurrencies.

How well have crypto donations gone?

WikiLeaks has done well in terms of donations. Bitcoin was only trading at six cents when the organization started receiving it as donations in 2010. Digital assets have since grown over the next decade to peak at $ 69,000 in 2021.

In 2017, founder Julian Assange tweeted saying that WikiLeaks investments have grown by more than 50,000% since they started accepting the digital asset. Assange went further by thanking the US government for instigating this move. Bitcoin has since grown an additional $ 50,000 since the founder made this tweet.

How far has Bitcoin come since the tweet referenced above | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com

Currently, WikiLeaks now accepts donations in six cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Monero, Litecoin, and ZCash. This report from CryptoPotato analyzed the history of the various wallets and concluded that WikiLeaks received over $ 2.2 million in donations using cryptocurrencies.

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However, this ruled out donations from Monero, as the report said donations using the privacy coin could not be tracked. In addition, WikiLeaks also received a donation of 1 CryptoKitties.

Julian Assange is currently on remand at Belmarsh Prison in London after suffering a stress stroke. ‘Transient ischemic stroke’ reportedly occurred after High Court overturned judgment barring Australian national from being extradited to US

Featured image from iStockPhoto, charts from TradingView.com

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