Saving Assange? Speculators pile into AssangeDAO

Rescuing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a big enough goal. This controversial figure was wanted for leaking US government scandals. After nearly seven years of protection from the Ecuadorian government, he was imprisoned in a London prison. The US government has been trying to extradite him back to the country. Finally, on December 10 last year, the British High Court made a ruling to allow extradition, which means Assange may be imprisoned in the United States for up to 175 years.

On the day of the verdict, AssangeDAO, named after Assange, was established. On February 4 this year, the organization, following the example of ConstitutionDAO and FreeRossDAO, launched a fundraising campaign on the token issuance tool JuiceBox, hoping to raise funds to bid for the NFT jointly issued by Assange and artist Pak, and to use the proceeds from the sale of NFTs to provide Assange with legal defense and publicity for protests.

As of February 7, AssangeDAO has raised 12,660 ETH, surpassing the 11,613 ETH raised by ConstitutionDAO (People), about 38.8 million US dollars. As the People governance token has risen dozens of times before, donors have benefited greatly, so this massive fundraising has attracted a large number of speculators, and the popularity of AssangeDAO has remained high in recent days.

However, AssangeDAO has been caught in a community turmoil because it has not yet released JUSTICE. Previously, the initiator of the organization had promised the community that there would only be one round of fundraising, but now it has launched a second round of fundraising, resulting in donors being unable to receive JUSTICE. Suspicions about whether the initiator will run away are rampant.

The more dramatic scene is that according to the social media expressions of many donors, they do not care about the goal of rescuing Assange, and do not even know Assange's resume at all, but just hope to speculate and make money in this round of fundraising. In the eyes of Twitter KOL "dahuzi.eth", AssangeDAO is full of speculators, making the opportunity to make money slim, and "who will pull the market" is a problem.

AssangeDAO raised more money than “People”

AssangeDAO has once again set off a wave of fundraising in recent days. This decentralized autonomous organization named after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a cypherpunk group fighting to liberate Assange. It aims to raise ETH to purchase a 1/1 dynamic NFT created by digital artist Pak in collaboration with Assange.

According to the AssangeDAO website, the dynamic NFT was minted using the manifest.xyz smart contract and will be auctioned by Pak on a dedicated website. The proceeds raised from the NFT sale will benefit Assange's legal defense fund and publicity campaign to raise awareness of the free speech impact of his case.

The reason why AssangeDAO has attracted widespread attention is closely related to Julian Assange's personal background and controversy.

Assange, an Australian journalist, founded the WikiLeaks website in 2006. In 2010, the website began to expose massive secret documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, including videos of murder incidents in Baghdad airstrikes by US forces and documents on toxic waste dumping in Cote d'Ivoire. These revelations that were unfavorable to the United States plunged the US government into huge controversy.

After a series of leaks, the US government launched a criminal investigation against WikiLeaks. On November 30, 2010, at the request of the International Public Prosecutor's Office in Sweden, Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for Assange on suspicion of sexual crimes. On December 7, Assange surrendered to the London Metropolitan Police, but he denied the charges. In 2012, Assange was granted political asylum by the Ecuadorian government and spent seven years in the embassy.

But in 2019, the Ecuadorian government expelled Assange on the pretext of a scandal and reached an agreement with the UK to arrest him. Subsequently, Assange has been detained in London's highest-security Belmarsh Prison. During this period, the US government has been hoping to extradite Assange to the United States.

In January 2021, a British local court rejected the US extradition request on the grounds that Assange would have a high risk of suicide after extradition. But on December 10, the British High Court overturned the previous ruling after the US again made an extradition request and allowed the US to extradite. Once extradited to the United States, Assange may face up to 175 years in prison.

On December 10, AssangeDAO fermented and formed in a Telegram group. Shortly after the formation of this Telegram group, Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton also joined it and continued to protest and lobby for Assange's release.

Until February 4 this year, following the example of ConstitutionDAO, which had previously raised funds to bid for a copy of the U.S. Constitution, AssangeDAO launched a fundraising campaign on the token issuance protocol JuiceBox, claiming to raise funds to bid for the 1/1 "Julian x Pak co-branded NFT" and use the proceeds from the sale of NFTs to work towards the release of Assange.

AssangeDAO raised 12,660 ETH

On February 7, AssangeDAO's financing ended, raising more than 10,500 ETH. Subsequently, it launched a second round of financing. As of now, the organization has raised 12,660 ETH, exceeding the 11,613 ETH raised by ConstitutionDAO (People), about 38.8 million US dollars. Similar to People, people can get 1 million governance tokens JUSTICE for every ETH donated. Since the People governance token has risen dozens of times before, donors have benefited greatly. Therefore, this massive fundraising has attracted a large number of speculators, and the popularity of AssangeDAO has remained high in recent days.

AssangeDAO's failure to issue tokens sparks controversy

According to the route plan for the funds released by AssangeDAO, AssangeDAO will use the proceeds from the sale of NFTs to help Assange fight extradition to the United States after bidding on the relevant NFTs. If DAO does not win the auction, all funds will be returned to users through JuiceBox after deducting the Gas fee.

This fundraising and refunding process has been repeated before after ConstitutionDAO failed to bid for a copy of the U.S. Constitution. In issuing JUSTICE tokens, AssangeDAO’s initiators did not fulfill their promises, and their reneging behavior has caused considerable controversy.

According to community members, the initiator of AssangeDAO stated in the community during the first round of fundraising that there would only be one round of donations, but after the first round of fundraising ended on February 7, the initiator immediately launched the second round of donations. After the second round of donations began, the first round donors were still unable to apply for the corresponding JUSTICE tokens, which caused strong dissatisfaction among community members.

AssangeDAO launches second round of fundraising, causing dissatisfaction among the community

The crypto community KOL "Jie Ni Jun" mocked AssangeDAO as "Schrödinger's DAO" to describe the organization's unstable state. Since the organization has raised a large amount of ETH but has not yet issued tokens, many donors are worried. Jie Ni Jun questioned, "Whether to run or not, this is a question."

Other industry insiders believe that even if AssangeDAO raises a large amount of funds, liberating Assange is still a seemingly impossible task. "In the past decade or so, the United States has never given up sanctions on Assange. With such determination, it is unrealistic to rely solely on funds to rescue Assange."

In fact, among the users who participated in this fundraising, some people didn’t know who Assange was at all, and had no interest in liberating Assange. Their first goal was to make money through speculation.

In the discussion on Twitter related to AssangeDAO, many users expressed concerns about not being able to make a profit, and some even wanted to form a rights protection group to get back the funds they had invested.

Users' concerns are not without reason. FreeRossDAO, which aimed to release Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the dark web market "Silk Road", attracted attention for a short period of time, but soon after, the governance token FREE fell all the way. It has fallen 64% from the fundraising cost price so far, and the goal of releasing Ross Ulbricht seems to have been forgotten.

In the AssangeDAO fundraising incident, on the one hand, it is very difficult to liberate Assange, and on the other hand, it is not easy to profit from it due to the gathering of speculators.

The KOL of the crypto community, "dahuzi.eth", believes that the previous success of People in terms of returns cannot be simply replicated, because People initially brought together a group of people who really donated and recognized the US Constitution, and there were not many speculative groups. The donors of AssangeDAO were more for the purpose of making money. "Then the question is, if a lot of people buy in at the same price, where is the demand? Who will pull the price? In the end, it will become a game of who runs first."

In addition, the KOL said that the difference between AssangeDAO and People is that the auction cycle for the copy of the U.S. Constitution is very short, and if it is unsuccessful, the principal can be refunded, while the time period for rescuing Assange may be very long, and as time goes by, there may be variables when users want to exit with principal.

Although the amount of ETH raised by AssangeDAO has exceeded that of "People", the prospects of this DAO are uncertain, both in terms of the difficulty of the target cause and the behavioral logic of donors. At present, AssangeDAO has lost its credibility, and the panic and dissatisfaction of donors are gradually accumulating. Once JUSTICE is released, selling will be inevitable, and donors will enter the "run fast" game.