Did Andrew Tate donate $500,000 in Bitcoin for Wikileaks’ founder travel cost?

An anonymous Bitcoin whale has donated 8 BTC worth about $500,000 to cover the traveling costs of recently released Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The donation came after his wife, Stella Assange, and WikiLeaks called for financial assistance for the massive $520,000 flight costs.

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According to his wife, Assange was flown via a chartered flight because he was banned from flying commercially. The Australian government was instrumental in the travel process, which cost $520,000, and he must pay it back. The Crowd Funder page shows that £389,883 has already been raised in fiat.

Who made Assange’s Bitcoin donation?

Crypto community members are speculating on the identity of the Bitcoin whale who donated to Assange. Controversial social media personality and former kickboxer Andrew Tate hinted that he might be the one by replying to the donation post on X with a gift box emoji. Notably, Tate had hailed Assange’s release, describing it as “a stroke of bright blue sky.” He added:

“Assange being free adds a burst of colour to the grey hellscape of injustice currently plaguing the world. A stroke of bright blue sky. Maybe, everything will turn around.”

However, many community members believe Tate was only trying to take credit for someone else’s actions. In contrast, others have urged him to “prove it by signing a message with the private key” of the donation address. Meanwhile, crypto researcher Rabbinstein suggested that Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s founder, might have made the donation. The analyst shared screenshots showing that the time Dorsey wished Assange a safe passage matched that of the transaction.

Why the crypto community rallied for Assange

The Bitcoin donation to Assange highlights the strong support he has enjoyed from the crypto community. Many in the crypto community consider him a hero for leaking classified documents that revealed the US’s human rights violations.

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Notably, the crypto industry’s support for Assange is also due to his backing for cryptocurrency in the early stages. Wikileaks was one of the first global organizations to accept Bitcoin donations starting in 2011. Many believe that WikiLeak’s acceptance of Bitcoin donations was one of the crucial factors that contributed to its adoption in the early days, similar to the Bitcoin pizza incident.

Since then, Assange has been very supportive of Bitcoin and described it in a 2014 interview as “the most interesting thing on the internet.” He predicted that it could have several potential use cases even outside of payments, a prediction that is already playing out in the broader crypto ecosystem.