By: Lisa

On March 10, 2024, the address marked as Censored: Clock Multisig ( 0x5DAEA26517788b1c0DDB0200c6Fa6d8248076143) transferred 100 ETH to a new address, an operation that once again aroused concern and dissatisfaction from the community. Because this address is directly related to the decentralized autonomous organization AssangeDAO, some members of the community expressed doubts about its potential "Soft Rug Pull" behavior. (Ps. This article is jointly produced by SlowMist and RescuETH)

What is AssangeDAO

Since its inception, AssangeDAO has attracted attention for its relationship with the deeply controversial individual Julian Assange. Julian Assange, who founded WikiLeaks in 2006, was imprisoned in a London prison in 2010 for exposing various controversies involving the US government. On December 10, 2021, the UK High Court made a decision to allow the extradition of Julian Assange, which means that he could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison in the United States. On the day this verdict came down, AssangeDAO named after Assange was established in a Telegram group. Shortly after the group was formed, Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton joined it and actively protested and lobbied for Assange's release.

On February 3, 2022, AssangeDAO followed the example of ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE), which was reported by many mainstream media, and launched a fundraiser on the crowdfunding platform JuiceBox. According to its official website, AssangeDAO is a "cypherpunk" organization whose members include members of the Assange family, with the sole purpose of freeing Assange from imprisonment. AssangeDAO claims to be raising funds to bid on a joint "Censored" series of NFTs created by Assange and digital artist Pak. This series of NFTs is called "Clock 1/1" and is a silent clock that records the days Assange spent in prison. It is understood that the NFT was auctioned by Pak on a dedicated website, with proceeds from the sale of the NFT going towards Assange’s legal defense and advocacy campaign to raise awareness of free speech in his case.

Similar to PEOPLE, people can get 1 million governance tokens JUSTICE for every ETH they donate. Since PEOPLE governance tokens have increased dozens of times before, donors have benefited greatly, so this fundraising has attracted a large number of Investors, and receive JUSTICE tokens in return, which can be used to vote on future DAO proposals. What makes this donation even more notable is that in February, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin donated 10 ETH to the project.

On February 7, 2022, AssangeDAO’s first round of fundraising came to an end, and they raised more than 10,500 ETH. Then, they quickly launched the second round of fundraising. So far, the total fundraising has reached 17,422 ETH, surpassing ConstitutionDAO’s 11,613 ETH, becoming the DAO with the most fundraising in the history of JuiceBox.

MistTrack on-chain tracking

According to relevant data provided by RescuETH, AssangeDAO's multi-signature address (0x5DAEA26517788b1c0DDB0200c6Fa6d8248076143) was released on March 2022 A total of approximately 16,600 ETH was received per month. Currently, this multi-signature address has 5,018.59 ETH left, and nearly 12,000 ETH has been transferred in two years.

We used the anti-money laundering tracking platform MistTrack for analysis. On April 8, 2022, the multi-signature address (0x5DA…143) transferred 580.745 ETH to the contract address (0xeD2…131), and then dispersedly transferred it to multiple addresses. Among them, 151 ETH stays at two addresses and has not been transferred out yet.

On May 9, 2022, the multi-signature address (0x5DA…143) transferred 34.99 ETH to the Kraken address (0x158…D11).

On May 9, 2022, the multi-signature address (0x5DA…143) transferred 829.64 ETH to the contract address (0x8a1…262), and then through the transfer of four addresses, 500 ETH was finally transferred to (0x323339bc28028da8cd11b584747ee8ec873616b4).

On May 11, 2022, the multi-signature address (0x5DA…143) transferred 124 ETH to the Coinbase address (0x9Ff…FE2).

It is worth noting that in the above transactions, the multi-signature address (0x5DA…143) will send 0.01 ETH to the target address for testing before transferring large amounts of assets.

On June 3, 2022, the multi-signature address (0x5DA…143) transferred 50 ETH to the address (0x323339bc28028da8cd11b584747ee8ec873616b4).

From June 8, 2022 to February 16, 2024, the multi-signature address (0x5DA…143) will transfer 150 ETH to different addresses every half month or so. 65 transfers have been made, totaling 9750 ETH. . Most of them went to the address (0x323339bc28028da8cd11b584747ee8ec873616b4); and starting on January 23, 2024, the last two transactions of 150 ETH ended up going to the address (0x2f988a4f26280a108a5761a889e63bd7f91d517e).

On March 6 and March 10, 2024, the multi-signature address (0x5DA…143) transferred 200 ETH into two transfers to the address (0x2f988a4f26280a108a5761a889e63bd7f91d517e).

After the above analysis, it can be seen that the final funds were gathered to two addresses:

0x323339bc28028da8cd11b584747ee8ec873616b4

0x2f988a4f26280a108a5761a889e63bd7f91d517e

Continue to analyze the address (0x323…6b4):

- First transaction The transaction was in October 2020;

- Between March 2022 and November 2023, a total of 17,517 ETH was transferred to the Kraken platform;

- Transfer 337.5992 ETH to another pooled address (0x2f988a4f26280a108a5761a889e63bd7f91d517e) in December 2023.

The first transaction of the address (0x2f9…17e) was in July 2023, and it transferred 1,250 ETH to two Kraken addresses between December 2023 and March 2024.

Currently, the fund transfer and balance situation is as follows:

Summary

As for the AssangeDAO incident, although its initial goal was aboveboard, the recent large-scale fund transfers have raised many questions, especially the address where the funds were finally gathered. If you are interested, you can use the anti-money laundering tracking platform MistTrack (https:// dashboard.misttrack.io/) self-monitor related funds.

We cannot know the true intention behind AssangeDAO and are waiting for the organization's official explanation or more information disclosure. At the same time, investors should also be aware of risks and must conduct careful research and evaluation before investing in any project. They should be particularly cautious about investments involving decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) because of the transparency and execution of such projects. There are certain challenges. Any promises of excessive returns, unclear fund flows, or frequent transfers should arouse our vigilance. These may be early warning signs of certain risky behaviors. Do not blindly pursue high returns and ignore potential risks.