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AssangeDAO has raised more than 17,000 ETH. Why does AssangeDAO cause discontent in the community?

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Is AssangeDAO really trying to free Assange?

Original title: saving Assange? Speculators amass AssangeDAO & NBSP;

Kyle, Hive Tech

A big enough goal is to free Julian Assange, the wikileaks founder, a controversial figure who is in a London jail after nearly seven years under the protection of the Ecuadorian government and is wanted for leaking information about the US government. On December 10th the British High Court ruled that assange could face up to 175 years in prison in the US.

On the day of the verdict, AssangeDAO was founded in Assange's name. On February 4, following the example of ConstitutionDAO and FreeRossDAO before it, the group launched a fundraising campaign on token issuing tool JuiceBox, hoping to raise funds to bid on NFT, which Assange co-authored with artist Pak, Proceeds from the sale of NFT were used to fund assange's legal defense and publicity campaigns.

As of February 7, AssangeDAO had raised 12,660 ETH, surpassing the 11,613 ETH raised by ConstitutionDAO (People), or about $38.8 million. The popularity of AssangeDAO has been high in recent days, as the People Governance Token has increased tens of times before, benefiting the donors a lot. Therefore, this huge fundraising has attracted a large number of speculators to come.

By this time, however, AssangeDAO had fallen into communal strife as JUSTICE had not yet been released. The group's founders had previously promised only one round of fundraising in the community, but now they have started a second round of fundraising, leaving donors unable to collect JUSTICE and raising questions about whether the founders will run away.

More dramatically, according to the social media accounts of many donors, they are not concerned with the goal of rescuing Assange, or even knowing his history, and are simply hoping to make money on the money. In the eyes of Twitter KOL "Dahuzi.eth," AssangeDAO is full of speculators, making the chances of making money very slim. "Who will pull the market?"

AssangeDAO raises more money than 'People'

AssangeDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization named after Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and a cypherpunk group fighting to free him, has seen a renewed flurry of fundraising in recent days. Aims to raise ETH to buy 1/1 Dynamic NFT by digital artist Pak in collaboration with Assange.

According to AssangeDAO's website, the dynamic NFT was cast using manifest.XYZ smart contract and will be auctioned by Pak on a dedicated website. Proceeds raised from the sale of NFT will benefit Mr Assange's legal defence fund and a publicity campaign to raise awareness of the free-speech implications of his case.

AssangeDAO has attracted so much attention because of Julian Assange's personal background and controversy.

Assange is an Australian journalist who founded wikileaks in 2006. In 2010, the site began publishing a trove of secret documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, including videos of murder collateral from U.S. airstrikes in Baghdad and toxic waste dumping in Cote d 'Ivoire, which caused huge controversy for the U.S. government.

The US government has launched a criminal investigation into wikileaks following a series of leaks. 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. Mr Assange handed himself in to Scotland Yard on December 7, but denies the allegations. Assange was granted political asylum by the Ecuadorian government in 2012 and spent seven years in the embassy.

But in 2019, the Ecuadorian government used the scandal as an excuse to expel Assange, and struck a deal with Britain for his arrest. Since then, Assange has been held in Belmarsh prison, a maximum-security facility in London. During this time, the U.S. government has been seeking Assange's extradition to the United States.

In January 2021, the British District Court refused to extradite Assange, citing a high risk of suicide. But on December 10, Britain's High Court overturned the ruling and allowed the US to extradite him, where he could face up to 175 years in prison.

On December 10, AssangeDAO was fermented and formed in a Telegram group. Soon after the cable group was formed, Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton joined it and continued to protest and lobby for Assange's release.

Until February 4 of this year, AssangeDAO, following ConstitutionDAO, which previously raised funds to bid on copies of the US Constitution, launched a fundraising campaign on JuiceBox, which said it wanted to raise funds to bid on 1/1 "Julian X Pak co-NFT", And used the proceeds from the sale of NFT to campaign for Mr Assange's release.

AssangeDAO raised 12,660 ETH

On February 7, AssangeDAO closed its financing, having raised more than 10,500 ETH. Subsequently, it started the second round of financing. Up to now, the organization has raised 12,660 ETH, exceeding 11,613 ETH raised by ConstitutionDAO (People), about 38.8 million US dollars, similar to People. People can get 1 million governance tokens for each donation of 1 ETH. Because the previous People governance token has increased tens of times, which has benefited the donors a lot, this huge fundraising has attracted a large number of speculators to AssangeDAO, and the heat of AssangeDAO has been high in recent days.

AssangeDAO did not issue a token citation dispute

AssangeDAO will bid for the NFT and use the proceeds to help Mr Assange fight extradition to the US, according to a route plan for the money published by AssangeDAO. If the DAO does not win the auction, all funds will be returned to the user via JuiceBox after deducting the Gas fee.

This fundraising and refund process has already been repeated after ConstitutionDAO failed in its bid for a copy of the US Constitution. In the issue of JUSTICE token, AssangeDAO initiator did not fulfill its promise, and its backtracking behavior caused no small controversy.

According to members of the community, the AssangeDAO founders had indicated to the community that there would be only one round of donations during the first round of fundraising, but immediately after the first round ended on February 7, they started a second round of donations. After the second round of donations began, the first round of donors still could not apply for the corresponding JUSTICE token, causing strong dissatisfaction among community members.

AssangeDAO's opening of a second round of fundraising has upset the community

The crypto community's KOL "Jeni Jun" insinuates AssangeDAO as "Schrodinger's DAO" to describe the unstable state of the organization. Since the organization has raised a large amount of ETH, but has not issued a token, many donors are worried. "To run or not to run, that's the question."

Another industry analyst believes that, even if AssangeDAO raised a large amount of money, the liberation of Assange is still a seemingly impossible task, "in the past more than 10 years, the United States has never given up sanctions against Assange, in such a determination, relying on funds to rescue Assange is unrealistic."

In fact, some of the users who participated in the fundraising had no idea who Assange was and had no interest in liberating him.

In the discussion of AssangeDAO's twitter hashtag, many users expressed concern about not being able to make a profit, and some even wanted to form a rights group to claim back the money they had invested.

Users have good reason to be concerned. FreeRossDAO, which aims to FREE Ross Ulbricht, founder of silk Road, a dark Web marketplace, briefly attracted attention, but soon after, the governance token FREE fell all the way down and has since lost 64% of its funding cost. The goal of freeing Ross Ulbricht seems to have been forgotten.

In the Case of the AssangeDAO fundraiser, it will be difficult to free Assange, on the one hand, but also difficult to profit from the accumulation of speculators.

KOL "Dahuzi. Eth" from Kami Community believes that People's previous success in returns cannot be simply replicated, because People initially gathered a group of People who truly donated and recognized the U.S. Constitution, and there were not many speculative groups. AssangeDAO's donors are more motivated to make money. "Then the problem is, a bunch of people get in at one price, where's the demand? Who's pulling the strings?

In addition, the KOL said the difference between AssangeDAO and People is that the auction period of the COPY of the U.S. Constitution is very short, and if it is not successful, it can be refunded at break-even, while the time period for the rescue of Assange may be very long, and as time goes by, users who want to exit at break-even may also change.

Although AssangeDAO has raised more ETH than "People", the future of the DAO is uncertain, both in terms of the difficulty of the cause and the logic of donors' behavior. In the moment, AssangeDAO has discredited himself, and the donors' panic and discontent is building. Once JUSTICE is released, the sell-off will be inevitable, and donors will enter the "run fast" game.