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Julian Assange Reaches Plea Deal With U.S. DOJ
Wikileaks co-founder pleads guilty to single espionage charge in exchange to a sentence for time served.
Updated Jun 25, 2024, 6:03āÆa.m. Published Jun 25, 2024, 4:27āÆa.m.
- Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange is now a free man after he struck a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice.
- Wikileaks and crypto have an intertwined history.
Julian Assange is free.
The Wikileaks co-founder, who spent five years in a U.K. jail cell and nearly seven years holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London, boarded a private jet at Stanstead airport and left the country, WikiLeaks announced on X.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Assange's departure from the U.K. follows prolonged negotiations with the U.S. Department of Justice, culminating in a deal that has not yet been formally finalized.
JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE
ā WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 24, 2024
Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded aā¦
Assange was arrested in the U.K. for breaching his bail conditions after seeking asylum in Ecuador's London Embassy to avoid extradition on various charges, including those related to his role in publishing classified documents provided by Chelsea Manning.
Manning had her own sentence commuted in 2013 by then-President Obama.
Assange's first stop is Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. protectorate, where he is expected to be sentenced to five years while getting credit for the five years of time served in the U.K.
Wikileaks and crypto
The history of Wikileaks and crypto has been closely intertwined.
In a 2014 interview, Assange said that bitcoin and Wikileaks helped keep each other alive.
As CoinDesk reported at the time, Assange said that Wikileaks initially refrained from accepting bitcoin to avoid drawing government scrutiny that could hinder the cryptocurrency's growth after a personal request from bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto. Later, when facing a financial blockade, it adopted bitcoin for donations, providing vital funding for Wikileaks and simultaneously enhancing BTC's legitimacy and utility.
In 2017, when rumors circulated that Assange was dead, he read off the latest bitcoin block hash as a proof-of-life.
During his legal battle with the U.S. and U.K governments, Assange and Wikileaks supporters turned to a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) to help fundraise for his legal fight, raising over 16,500 ether ā over $55.2 million at current prices ā for his defense.
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- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
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Canadian Province Wins Forfeiture of $1M QuadrigaCX Co-Founder's Cash & Gold via Default Judgment
The ruling transfers cash, gold bars, watches, and jewelry seized from a CIBC safety deposit box and bank account into government hands after Patryn did not defend the case.
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- The Supreme Court of British Columbia has forfeited $1 million in cash and gold tied to QuadrigaCX's co-founder, Michael Patryn, to the government.
- Patryn did not contest the forfeiture, which involved 45 gold bars, luxury watches, and over $250,000 in cash seized under an Unexplained Wealth Order.
- The forfeiture may lead to a process determining if any assets can be directed to QuadrigaCX's creditors, who received 13 cents on the dollar in the bankruptcy settlement.
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