WikiLeaks Founder 'Returns' as Token Surges 743%

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced his return to X with just two words: 'I'm back.' The Ethereum-based token Justice (JUSTICE), created to support his legal defense, surged 743% within 24 hours.

Most reports described the return as a two-year absence, but Assange corrected this, stating his last personal post was in 2018. His campaign has been run under the account @DefendAssange since 2016, making the silence eight years rather than two. After gaining freedom in April 2024, Assange has been quietly living in Sydney.

JUSTICE saw a trading volume spike from an average of under $800 daily to around $231,000 during the surge, though total liquidity remained largely unchanged. Most trades occurred within a single Uniswap pool, with a fully diluted market cap of approximately $2.5 million. The token's price remains about 95% below its February 2022 peak.

Traders have previously exploited similar attention spikes, such as the 10,000% surge in meme coin BASECAT in August 2023, which later crashed. JUSTICE was launched in February 2022 to raise funds for Assange's legal defense, with supporters raising about 16,593 ETH ($53 million at the time). The funds were used by the Wau Holland Foundation to cover legal costs after purchasing an NFT from artist Pak.

Bitcoin has historically served as a lifeline for WikiLeaks. After Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal blocked payments in December 2010, WikiLeaks began accepting Bitcoin in June 2011, which became an early test of censorship-resistant funding systems. Satoshi Nakamoto opposed this at the time. Assange later credited these donations with generating around a 50,000% return for WikiLeaks, and in 2024, anonymous donors covered $500,000 in private jet costs using eight Bitcoin.