Update: 11 days after publication, a member of Wau Holland Stiftung’s board wrote in an email that the report would likely be ready by the end of November. The response also encouraged me to come to Germany in April to try to get answers to the other questions: “As to your additional questions: Feel free to attend next years easterhegg. Traditionally we are delivering a report on our activities personally with Q&A, of course.”
Update 2: The end of November came and went, no transparency report was published.
There have been a series of allegations throughout the year involving the Wau Holland Foundation and AssangeDAO, including an alleged rug pull and rumored plans to funnel the remaining AssangeDAO funds to Julian Assange. The Wau Holland Foundation isn’t answering questions, and the final transparency report is nowhere in sight.
In 2022, AssangeDAO worked with the Assange family to raise over $50 million in ETH through an NFT auction, the proceeds of which were donated to the Wau Holland Foundation, German non-profit formally called Wau Holland Stiftung (WHS). The donation decision was made by the multisig holders and the Assange family, bypassing the DAO membership, and has been the subject of long-term complaints from some community members. WHS has managed and dispersed the funds for Julian Assange’s legal defense and various related lawsuits, public relations campaigns, political lobbying and other expenses.
In early April 2024, SlowMist and RescuETH Rescue published a report that flagged a series of transfers made by WHS. The published analysis traced the path that some of the funds took, but was not entirely clear about what made the transfers suspicious. WHS has explained some of the transfers as including an approximately a 580 ETH payment to the Assange Campaign International as a commission for brokering the NFT auction as well as 829 ETH to themselves.
The report also describes a series of 67 regular transfers of ETH, which WHS has explained were conversions of ETH to Euros performed by the Swiss company Bity. This arrangement seems to have been setup by Harry Halpin and Alexis Roussel of Nym. (Alexis is a co-founder of Bity, and was the company’s CEO at the time.) A month and a half later, Gabriel Shipton responded to the report by claiming it was “just false” and that it had “confused AssangeDAO for the Wau Holland Foundation.” (Slow Mist’s report correctly attributed the wallet to WHS.) Coincidentally, Julian Assange signed his plea deal on the same day Shipton’s denial was published.
A week later, Julian Assange’s plea deal was public and as part of his journey home, he was taking a chartered flight which had to be paid for. WHS promptly guaranteed the payment, which raised questions about the Assange family’s fundraising to cover the costs. A single donation in bitcoin and a general fundraiser both raised enough funds to cover the costs. When WHS published an initial report in early July, they wrote that because the Assange campaign had “so far raised a total of around EUR 1 million,” they assumed “that the flight costs will not have to be paid by the Foundation.”
A week after publishing the English version of the report, WHS announced that they had paid the approximately 480,000 Euros. When asked by email and on social media about the costs and if they were being refunded by the Assange campaign, Wau Holland Stiftung did not responded.
As I previously reported, as early as July AssangeDAO faced “rug pull” accusations from some of its own organizers, notably Amir Taaki. By the beginning of September, WHS had cut off communication with lawyer and AssangeDAO multisig holder, Silke Noa. According to Amir, WHS said they had no obligation to talk to Silke or anyone else, a sentiment that Harry Halpin repeated, adding that “Wau is legally obligated to either return money to Pak or to Julian by German law.” According to Harry Halpin, WHS explained in an email to him that they broke communication with Silke on the advise of their lawyers after she e-mailed the entire WHS, but not what the email was about. In several messages, Amir accused Harry Halpin and Alexis Roussel of “conspiring” with WHS about the remaining funds.
Harry Halpin responded by saying he had “not been informed of Wau’s or Julian’s final plans,” and that he had “no role in any foundation.” While Harry also said that “the money was a donation from Pak to Wau” and that WHS was “legally obligated to either return money to Pak or to Julian by German law,” Silke Noa noted that according to WHS, the remaining ETH would not have been counted as a donation yet, which would increase the possibilities, adding that it would be “best to ask Wau Holland.” As early as June 30th, however, Harry Halpin had said that WHS’ initial plan was “to work with [the] Assange family to make sure [the] family makes [the] final decision on [the] remaining funds.” He added that WHS was worried about their 2022 approval from tax authorities, and WHS would “do a full accounting for funds spent on chain and will send to family in a way that is acceptable to German authorities.”
At the beginning of September, WHS told Harry Halpin that all of the receipts were being processed in September and that a final transparency report would be produced along with an explanation about the remaining funds. However, as of this writing the final transparency report has not been produced and WHS has not commented on the ultimate fate of the funds. When asked when the the final report could be expected to be released, Wau Holland Stiftung did not respond. However Rachel Rose O’Leary, another AssangeDAO organizer and multisig holder, seems to confirm Amir Taaki’s allegations.
During an interview with Bitfinex Talks that was posted soon after AssangeDAO’s $JUSTICE token launched on their platform, Rachel Rose O’Leary was asked about the remaining funds. Her only response is to describe a rumor that “Wau Holland is planning to give the funds back to Pak, the artist, who will then give the funds back to some foundation that’s controlled by Assange.”
According to the preliminary report from WHS, the project had a positive balance of 1,143,572 Euros as of June 24th. Five additional transfers of 150 ETH were made after this, including two transfers after final invoices were due. Alexis Roussel has said about the ETH conversions and remaining funds that he “cannot comment on the details on any operation. Only Wau can disclose things.” Asked why they continued converting ETH to Euros, Wau Holland Stiftung did not respond.
Currently, there are approximately 3,681 ETH remaining in the wallet, which as of this writing is worth over $11 million USD. When asked if they were legally obligated to either return money to Pak or to Julian, Wau Holland Stiftung did not respond. Asked when they had first first begun collaborating with Harry Halpin and Alexis Roussel, Wau Holland Stiftung did not respond. Asked if they had a response to Amir Taaki’s allegation that WHS had been “conspiring” with Harry Halpin and Alexis Roussel regarding the funds raised by AssangeDAO, Wau Holland Stiftung did not respond.
While the alleged plan to send the remaining 3,681 ETH to the Assange family or a Foundation controlled by Julian remains an allegation, it’s one that comes from multiple sources and seems to be confirmed by early statements made by Harry Halpin. At least one AssangeDAO volunteer has given up on doing anything with the DAO until they know what Julian or Wau Holland want – neither of whom are saying anything about it.
Wau Holland Stiftung was contacted more than a week before publication with a list of questions and a request to say within if a response would be coming at all. Wau Holland Stiftung did not respond. A copy of the email sent to WHS can be found below:
Inquiry about Moral Courage project
To mail@wauland.de, 1 more… on 2024-11-02 11:57Hello,
I have some questions about the Moral Courage: Julian Assange project.
If you are unable to respond by the end of the week (Friday November
8th), please let me know if a response will be forthcoming.
When is the final transparency report expected to be released?
According to the preliminary report, Wau Holland Stiftung didn’t expect
to have to pay for Assange’s plane because donations had been gathered
separately by the family. A week later, WHS announced they had paid the
Australian government for the plane after receiving an invoice. Was WHS
reimbursed from the funds that had been raised for the plane?
Why did Wau Holland Stiftung keep the ETH instead of converting it all
to traditional currency after receiving the donation, or to a stable
coin to prevent fluctuations in the value of ETH from devaluaing the
donation (as appears to have happened)?
Why did Wau Holland Stiftung continue converting ETH to Euros several
weeks after final invoices were due?
What possible work are lawyers considering continuing?
What is Assange Campaign International?
Why does an internal document
(https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23796003-eh20-berichtcleaned#document/p3)
seem to list 5% being sent to the Assange Campaign instead of 3.5%?
Why did Wau Holland Stiftung stop communicating with Silke Noa about
AssangeDAO? Was it on the advice of WHS’ lawyers?
Has Wau Holland Stiftung resumed communicating with Silke Noa? If so,
when?
When did Wau Holland Stiftung begin collaborating with Harry Halpin and
Alexis Roussel?
Is it correct that Wau Holland Stiftung has discussed what do with the
remaining funds with Harry Halpin and Alexis Roussel?
Is it correct, as explained by Harry Halpin
(https://t.me/Real_AssangeDAO/1/6153), that Wau Holland Stiftung “is
legally obligated to either return money to Pak or to Julian by German
law”?
Does Wau Holland Stiftung have a response to Amir Taaki’s allegation
that WHS has been “conspiring” with Harry Halpin and Alexis Roussel with
regard to the funds raised by AssangeDAO?
Does Wau Holland Stiftung have any comment on the Slow Mist report from
April of this year?
Is the 829.65 ETH (over 2,000,000 Euros at the time) received by Wau
Holland Stiftung the largest contribution WHS received?
Did Wau Holland Stiftung lobby outside of the United States?
Thank you for your time and your prompt response,
Emma Best
