Three past threads on it.

• Satoshi went silent right after some members here promoted it to wikileaks
• Has Julian Assange met Satoshi Nakamato?
• Reasons Satoshi probably is, or isn't Julian Assange?

Two interesting posts from theymos and Peter Todd.

I'm proud to say that I donated a bunch of those in 2012 after Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal blockaded Wikileaks. Now that my bitcoins are all spent, I wouldn't mind getting a few of those back

No one knows exactly what Satoshi was thinking at the time and why he chose to maintain his privacy. There are many reasons that can be thought of, such as avoiding government pressure or perhaps even imprisonment, as well as a practical application of Bitcoin’s basic idea of ​​privacy and decentralization, or perhaps for other reasons that we do not know.

I sometimes wonder if Satoshi had not chosen to maintain his privacy and hide his identity, what might have happened? We probably would not have seen Bitcoin as it is today.

Was hoping to get some comments or opinions from people from back then, so you seem to be one of them. The general feeling I got was Bitcoiners on this forum weren't generally supportive, nor thought the focus on Bitcoin thanks to WL was good.

But I wonder if opinions changed since then. Bitcoin has many use cases, and WL being able to accept funding because traditional means weren't available is essentially a direct parallel to my own case as a freelancer just wanting to get paid. Blocked by PayPal, not able to have Visa/MC or even SWIFT in many places where I used to work.


Yeah, they've not published anything new for years, in all practical purposes it's dead. But keeping documents accessible and distributed, security does cost money. I'm sure his legal fees too...

It's interesting and Bitcoin can give people a mean for privacy, transparency of transactions, decentralization of its network, and full control of their bitcoin. Depends on each person, with different demand on privacy, anonymity and knowledge, there will be different practical ways.

They turn their swords against their national governments but they fled towards another nation that is worse than their homelands, that sucks. If it is about human rights, it's truly to say that Russia is bad.

Their activities mean something for their homeland's citizens because it creates pressure on governments to change, minor or major, so their contributions have value, I have to recognize this. But if after all, they migrated to Russia and had to say sweet words about Russia just to satisfy that regime under Putin, it sucks again. Honestly I don't know Snowden has ever said sweet words about Russia or Putin.

A drowning man will hold anything to survive. I think these men move towards Russia because it might be the only country that can protect them from prosecution and going to jail in the US. It's just like befriending an enemy of your enemy for protection. But many people see them as freedom fighters. Yesterday, Assange was able to raise $872,000 in a few hours which exceeded the $520,000 emergency appeal he needed to cover his transportation and other expenses.

I read a publication where Julian Assange was thanking the US for blocking donations to WikiLeaks through payment companies like Visa and MasterCard. His reason was that this blocking made him accept donations in cryptocurrencies. Assange believed that it was this policy that made WikiLeaks to invest in Bitcoin. I doubt if Assange still possesses those donated coins. Maybe he might have spent most of them on legal fees and other expenses. He had to rely on donations.to cover jet and recovery costs, so I doubt if he is still rich.

This, exactly! It is one of the ‘very’ few places where Obama’s drones wouldn’t dare to take him out. They were out for blood!