"Censored": Julian Assange and digital artist Pak launch a new NFT project

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and pseudonymous crypto artist Pak have launched a brand new NFT collection named Censored. 

Pak, a well-known digital artist and crypto investor, had recently made headlines with their $91.8-million NFT project "Merge" that has earned them the record for the largest art sale by a living artist. Now, the artist has teamed up with currently imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. 

An NFT project against censorship

As the project's name suggests, Assange has become a famous figure in recent history for publishing governments' large data of censored or restricted official materials that involve intelligence, corruption, and war. However, he had previously said his journalism style was ‘scientific journalism’, meaning that he published the source materials with minimal editorial remarks.

Following WikiLeaks' exposure of sensitive documents, Assange has been accused on 18 counts relating to wrongdoing and double-dealing by the U.S. federal agencies. And since April 2019, Assange has been confined in Belmarsh maximum-security prison in London. The funds raised from Censored's sales will go toward Assange’s legal fees.

Announcing the project on Twitter, Pak said that Censored is a two-part NFT that consists of a dynamic one-of-a-kind NFT auction for a "clock", and an open edition that would be for all to participate. The auction went live on February 7, and users have been visiting and participating in the project through its website headlined "a collection by Pak & Assange & You". 

The ingeniously subtle project sends a silent but powerful message against censorship we face in today's media. 

The biddable clock counts each day that Assange has been confined which is "one thousand thirty four", at the time of writing. Pak said that it will go back to zero once Assange is freed. The open edition, however, is a platform where users can tokenize their messages under a black stripe, uniting all who participate under censorship. So far, over 20 thousand users have participated in the project while the clock has gotten bids as high as 1,000 ETH which equals $3 million.

After his Merge NFT, Censored is Pak's next open edition. The highly anticipated project combines Pak's revolutionary NFT ideas and Assange’s controversial influence in the journalism world, resulting in an intriguing digital artwork that has echoed around the world.