NFT Auction Raises More Than $50 Million For WikiLeaks' Julian Assange
Julian Assange collaborated with a crypto artist known as Pak to sell a collection of NFTs.
London: An online auction of digital art to raise money towards WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's legal defence saw bids reach more than $50 million on Wednesday.
Assange is battling extradition from Britain to the United States where the authorities want him to face trial on 18 criminal charges including breaking a spying law, after WikiLeaks began to publish thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables in 2010.
Last month, Assange, who remains in a London prison, was given the chance to challenge approval of his extradition at Britain's highest court. The Supreme Court will now decide whether or not to hear his case.
Assange collaborated with a crypto artist known as Pak to sell a collection of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) called Censored in an online auction from February 7-9 to help raise funds to support his case.
NFTs are a kind of crypto asset that uses blockchain to record the ownership status of digital files such as images, videos and even items within online games.
The centrepiece of the auction is an NFT artwork, Clock, that displays the number of days Assange has been imprisoned in white text on a black background. It updates each day.
Bids on the Clock NFT were at 16,593 ether, which is worth just under $52 million, as of 1115 GMT on Wednesday.
The bid was placed by Assange supporters who formed a group called AssangeDAO to bid collectively on the NFT.
A Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) is a sort of online community which allows members to pool their money and use blockchain-based tokens to vote on decisions about how it is run.
The AssangeDAO raised 17,422 of the cryptocurrency ether - around $54.6
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