In a significant call for transparency, Silke Noa, a member of AssangeDAO, has urged the Wau Holland Foundation to provide a detailed account of the $37 million spent on Julian Assange's legal defense. According to Noa, this substantial amount, derived from approximately 11,000 Ether out of a total 16,593 ETH raised, has been used by AssangeDAO’s initiative, The Clock, to fund legal and campaign efforts to free Assange.

Noa emphasized the need for transparency in a recent X post, explaining that the 16,593 ETH allocation was managed by the Wau Holland Foundation through their Safe.global multisig wallet address. While she acknowledged that there were security reasons for maintaining limited transparency in the past to avoid prejudicing Assange's legal case, Noa insists that it is now time for the foundation to provide a detailed accounting of how these funds have been allocated.

Julian Assange, the Australian journalist and activist who founded WikiLeaks—a platform known for publishing classified and sensitive documents—has been imprisoned since April 2019. The ongoing efforts to secure his release have been supported by various groups, including AssangeDAO.

In a conversation with Cointelegraph, Harry Halpin, CEO of Nym and a friend of Assange, explained the origins of AssangeDAO. He noted that the DAO was formed by friends and family of Assange, along with participants from the web3 space, in response to the growing popularity of tokenized NFTs like ConstitutionDAO. Recognizing that Assange’s legal team was running out of funds, they saw an opportunity to use this novel fundraising mechanism for his defense.

Joshua Bate, a core team member of AssangeDAO, further elaborated on the initiative. He highlighted that the funds were crowdsourced from on-chain and cypherpunk communities, raising awareness and prompting decentralized community action. One significant effort included the creation and sale of a unique one-of-one non-fungible token (NFT), developed in collaboration with Assange himself. The proceeds from this sale were sent to the Wau Holland Foundation’s on-chain address and periodically converted to pay for legal fees.

Another core team member, who was responsible for designing AssangeDAO’s governance structure, expressed optimism about the community's unity. They mentioned that the Pak NFT, which symbolizes the community's effort, would achieve its true value once Assange is freed, marking a historical event where an NFT community contributed to releasing someone from prison.

Despite the groundbreaking efforts and the innovative fundraising approach, the AssangeDAO community remains cautious. They acknowledge that true celebration can only commence once "everything is all settled" and Assange is free.