Somebody Sent Julian Assange $500,000 In Bitcoin

Julian Assange’s Bitcoin wallet received $500,000 worth of Bitcoin from a mystery donor on Tuesday, on-chain data shows.

The donation follows the whistleblower’s release from the United Kingdom’s high-security Belmarsh prison on Monday, after reaching a plea deal with U.S. authorities following five years behind bars.

Bitcoin Brings Assange Home

According to blockchain data, a donation of 8.2 BTC ($492,254) was transferred from a multisignature wallet to Assange’s Bitcoin donation address, as displayed on the freeassange.org website.

Early on Wednesday, the WikiLeaks founder’s wife Stella Assange called on followers for a final show of financial support, seeking $520,000 to pay debt to the Australian government. Assange was barred from taking commercial flights for his route to Saipan for his court appearance, and later back home to Australia, and thus needed money to use charter Flight VJ199 for the journey.

Though the family successfully raised over 78% of their target funds through Crowdfunder as of Wednesday, the Bitcoin donation received Tuesday covered nearly the entire debt expense.

Assange walked out a free man after pleading guilty in court to one charge of espionage on Wednesday, and has since returned home to Australia. Judge Ramona Manglona noted that Assange’s actions caused “no actual physical harm” following his plea.

Who Sent The Bitcoin?

Two men appear to have subtly – though not directly – claimed credit for the donation. One was internet personality Andrew Tate, who replied with an emoji of a gift to someone calling attention to the transaction over Twitter.

The online Bitcoin community was more skeptical of Tate’s claim, calling on him to sign the transaction personally to prove his control of the senders’ address. However, observers later noticed a subtle claim from another wealthy personality with much deeper roots in the Bitcoin community.

“Safe passage through,” tweeted Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey on Tuesday at 5:03 pm ET – the exact time that the transaction was sent through on chain.

Dorsey’s company Block spearheads numerous Bitcoin infrastructure initiatives. It includes a beginner-friendly multi-signature wallet vendor, a mining chip manufacturer, and a platform for buying Bitcoin – CashApp. He’s also repeatedly donated money to Bitcoin developers, and holds BTC on his firm’s balance sheet.