This text is featured in Bitcoin Journal’s “The Inscription Concern”. Click on right here to get your Annual Bitcoin Journal Subscription.
Bitcoin has for many of its lifetime been seen as a financial community, whereby customers can ship and obtain the native token BTC. Given the large worth appreciation since its inception in 2009, the financial good additionally turned a retailer of worth — a way by which somebody might retailer their precious work hours in order to not have them debased and as an alternative expertise a rise of buying energy somewhat than a loss.
Not all customers are alike, nevertheless. Regardless of the recognition of those financial narratives, some outcasts have used Bitcoin for every kind of functions all through time. Most notably, Julian Assange, a now-famous journalist and political prisoner, creator of WikiLeaks, used Bitcoin for various causes, together with as a proof-of-life mechanism and a verifiable proof-of-publishing. To Assange, Bitcoin was and nonetheless is way more than a distributed financial system that solves the double-spending drawback inherent in digital money. For the journalist, Bitcoin can function way more, and whereas he battles for his life, others have joined him in that mission.
Now, earlier than diving into the intricacies of what Bitcoin is and could be to Assange and his supporters, let’s take a step again and see what the journalist has achieved with this digital coin for the reason that first time his NGO embraced bitcoin.
In 2010, shortly after the publishing of U.S. diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks within the notorious Chelsea Manning leaks, Assange’s group was reduce from the worldwide banking system as Financial institution of America, Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal stopped serving the web platform. That actuality led Assange to undertake bitcoin, and in June 2011 WikiLeak’s Twitter account introduced they’d begin accepting bitcoin donations.
Apparently, WikiLeaks voiced curiosity in adopting bitcoin a lot sooner than June 2011, and in keeping with posts in then-popular discussion board BitcoinTalk, Satoshi discouraged Assange from pursuing that route in December 2010. Their purpose? “Bitcoin is a small beta neighborhood in its infancy. You wouldn’t stand to get greater than pocket change, and the warmth you’d carry would probably destroy us at this stage.” WikiLeaks patiently waited one other six months earlier than accepting bitcoin.
Mockingly, Assange would later reward the U.S. authorities for allegedly issuing this coordinated assault, which after all led to WikiLeak’s embrace of bitcoin and subsequently resulted in a capital appreciation in greenback phrases of over a thousand %. It’s each fascinating and comical that the very fact WikiLeaks bought locked out of the mainstream monetary system for merely publishing leaked paperwork would make them a a lot better monetary state of affairs — one wherein they didn’t have to ask permission and will get pleasure from nice financial positive aspects in greenback phrases. Poetic.
In September 2014, Assange would begin hinting on the different attainable use instances he noticed for Bitcoin, which, given his tone and supply, leads one to imagine he was way more keen about that than monetary hypothesis — nevertheless massive the positive aspects could possibly be with the financial use case:
“Bitcoin is an especially essential innovation, however not in the way in which most individuals suppose. Bitcoin’s actual innovation is a globally verifiable proof of publishing at a sure time. The entire system is constructed on that idea and lots of different techniques may also be constructed on it. The blockchain nails down historical past, breaking Orwell’s dictum of ‘He who controls the current controls the previous and he who controls the previous controls the longer term’.”
A few years later, the usage of Bitcoin as a timestamping server for WikiLeaks paperwork started to emerge, albeit it wasn’t clear if it was WikiLeaks itself doing the timestamps or grassroots activists. A Reddit consumer posted on r/WikiLeaks that somebody had timestamped the hashes of some WikiLeaks torrent recordsdata, probably utilizing OpenTimestamps — an open supply instrument created by Bitcoin developer Peter Todd for this objective.
Gabriel Shipton, movie producer and Assange’s brother, talked with Bitcoin Journal concerning the early days of his brother’s interactions with bitcoin:
“Julian acknowledged in 2011 the ability of bitcoin to construct ‘an mental scaffold’ for civilization, a protocol that might permit any reference to human mental contributions to be independently verified, with out counting on any group. Bitcoin so enormously excited him not solely attributable to it being probably the most censorship-resistant method of publishing attainable, but in addition of what it provided: The flexibility to assemble an important surprise of information, a vital instrument in humanity’s battle in opposition to ignorance.”
Assange’s thought course of on Bitcoin use instances is significant not solely as a result of they make clear a very novel use for the decentralized community, but in addition due to how early they had been uttered. Assange noticed this potential over a decade in the past, however it wouldn’t be till the discharge of Ordinals that this use case can be popularized in a significant approach.
Ordinals, launched on Bitcoin mainnet in the beginning of 2023, permits anybody to effortlessly add arbitrary knowledge to a Bitcoin block at any given second. As soon as that knowledge is added, it inherits Bitcoin’s immutability and safety, and might obtain Assange’s imaginative and prescient of a verifiable proof-of-publishing at that second. Inscriptions go even additional. Along with simply housing a timestamp enabling proof-of-publishing, which customers tried with torrent tracker recordsdata as early as 2016, Ordinals allows the direct publishing of the information itself on Bitcoin. Not solely is there an immutable document of the time and date in block peak phrases, there may be now additionally the likelihood to publish the precise contents of the article or torrent hyperlink itself. A brand new period of blockspace utilization for Bitcoin.
Naturally, we’ve seen the launch of this new protocol result in a complete slew of JPEGs being revealed in blocks. Within the early days, some had been simply random memes, however not lengthy after its launch, inscribers began getting subtle, creating recursion strategies, and even teleburning Ethereum-based NFT collections. Now, practically a full 12 months later, Ordinals have spun a completely new ecosystem in Bitcoin, enabling all totally different sorts of creative and software program developments to happen on the “mom chain”.
Nonetheless, some initiatives started to emerge that attempt to cater to Assange’s imaginative and prescient from approach again in 2014. These initiatives fluctuate in form, measurement, and kind, however all appear to hunt Bitcoin and the chances caused by Ordinals to truly do one thing greater than speculate on the photographs and movies revealed on Bitcoin.
Most notably, a venture emerged in October 2023 that sought to allow anybody on this planet so as to add to Bitcoin the cables revealed within the leaks that initially locked WikiLeaks out of the worldwide monetary system again in 2010. Because of Ordinals, this venture was capable of permit not solely the timestamping of the cables, however the precise inscribing and storing of the unadulterated content material itself. Challenge Spartacus turned Bitcoin right into a type of Library of Alexandria — one that can not be altered or destroyed, irrespective of how highly effective the adversary.
On this case, the leaks expose battle crimes by the USA navy and authorities, and expose information that stand in stark distinction to the principle narratives pushed by the media and the federal government itself about what was taking place on the bottom within the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
13 years after these cables turned a journalist right into a political prisoner, this grassroots venture emerged to face in solidarity with Assange and declare, “I’m Assange”. Alluding to the well-known “I’m Spartacus” scene within the 1960 film Spartacus, Challenge Spartacus invitations Bitcoin customers from everywhere in the world to say “I’m Assange” and inscribe into Bitcoin these cables that kickstarted every part.
Challenge Spartacus goals to take a stand towards freedom of data and information, making it not possible for anybody to mess with the information that Assange risked his life to make public. The journalist at the moment faces potential extradition to the U.S., regardless of being an Australian citizen and never having dedicated the alleged offenses on U.S. soil. The end result of the extradition course of stays unsure, and considerations proceed to develop concerning his future and whether or not he’ll ever regain his freedom.
Challenge Spartacus’ web site offers a public interface by which any individual can “inscribe” –– Ordinals jargon for including knowledge to Bitcoin –– a battle log. There appear to be no charges related to this motion other than community charges, a mandatory part to any transaction submitted to the Bitcoin community. The web page additionally encompasses a “donate” button, which opens up a panel by which customers can optionally ship bitcoin to Assange’s trigger. Donations are stated to go towards supporting the next organizations: Freedom of the Press Basis, The Info Rights Challenge, and Reporters With out Borders.
Bitcoin Journal spoke with the nameless creators of the expertise behind Challenge Spartacus, who shed some gentle on the method and mission:
“Every battle log a consumer inscribes by Challenge Spartacus is a file containing the unique content material from one of many 76,911 Afghan Battle Diary logs. We selected the Ordinals protocol for its widespread adoption, even in its infancy, as a regular for immutable knowledge storage, and just because we imagine Bitcoin is probably the most immutable and uncensorable expertise for this use case. As every log is inscribed, its knowledge is embedded into Bitcoin to be propagated and simply discovered by any of the numerous Bitcoin and Ordinals purchasers. We see this use case for Bitcoin to be crucial for human rights and freedom, and we hope that you’ll stand with Julian Assange by storing this delicate knowledge on Bitcoin with us.”
Upon navigating to the web site, the consumer finds an enormous rectangular button on the principle web page, studying “Publish Battle Log”. Upon clicking, the method of inscribing a battle log is triggered. The consumer is given the choice to decide on what number of logs to inscribe, with a most of 300 battle logs per transaction. The consumer can then choose the transaction payment, based mostly on which a complete quantity for fee is calculated. Upon hitting “proceed”, the consumer is then presumably redirected for fee.
The creators of Challenge Spartacus gave the recordsdata a graphical remedy by selecting SVG recordsdata, which nonetheless include the uncooked log knowledge as a remark subject, whereas giving the consumer a approach to simply view the data. The venture takes a spin on Ordinals’ well-liked use case of digital artifacts to give attention to full knowledge finality on a decentralized chain of data, run by tens of 1000’s of nodes in a whole bunch of various jurisdictions world wide.
On this sense, as Assange as soon as envisioned, Bitcoin has certainly turn into greater than only a monetary asset — it’s now a beacon of hope for these preventing in opposition to the suppression of fact and the distortion of historical past.
This text is featured in Bitcoin Journal’s “The Inscription Concern”. Click on right here to get your Annual Bitcoin Journal Subscription.
