One wonders if the funds should have been converted before the funds were sent off?
Anyway that’s past history and cannot be undone. An argument for the funds to have been retained by the DAO perhaps but - one never knows what the DAO may have been hit with if it had kept the funding instead?Could have been forcibly shutdown and the funding confiscated by the US.
Perhaps with WH - even though there was a loss at the beginning - was better able to withstand political attempts to be shut down?
Hence I assume one of the arguments for the maxibid. Very complex issue.
On the one hand, in the prevailing environment, ETH as a cryptocurrency was widely seen as scarce, while fiat currencies were constantly depreciating. Many organizations accept ETH and BTC donations and keep them for a long time.
On the other hand, the price at the time of donation was around 3000USD, about a year later the price was around 1000USD and now it is 4200USD. the question is who knows what the price will be later? If the price reaches 20,000USD in a few years, then the value of the ETH retained in the WH will be 73M. will someone then blame the WH for exchanging all the ETH for fiat currency at 3000USD? I’m sure someone will.
Don’t forget that bz had planned a proposal to convert all ETH in the treasury to fiat when the price was 900USD. If the exchange had been successful then, would people be happy now?
It’s an argument without a point, just a psychological reaction to people’s fear of asset devaluation.
Could we ask Wau if it would be possible for them to make a donation of most or all of the remaining funds if we moved the DAO forward with a mission that aligned Assange’s values and Wau Holland’s mission? And if they would be open to that, what would they need to see from us (would we have to register the DAO in a EU country?)
The DAO formed to raise funds for Assange’s legal + campaign by raising funds to bid on the Pak NFT… Which Pak had promised to donate to Wau Holland. I agree that the remaining unspent funds should clearly be returned to the DAO but that was not agreed upon or thought about initially. I dont think Pak is available for comment, is he? For example could Wau refund Pak the remaining unspent funds?
Harry Halpin spoke to them and said it was possible.
Arguably Pak isn’t the donor. That narrative should not form the DAOs legal position and nullifies the public’s donations. They were essentially paid for their art and were asked to transfer the proceeds to Wau Holland via DAO leadership.
Could @SilkeNoa explain here the DAOs legal position on this matter please.
About “finder fee” from WHS,WHS sent a follow-up email on 2024.12.27 18:14 to avoid my misunderstanding.the original source and full discussion of the “finder fee” come from here.
PS: I should add in order to prevent misunderstandings:
The reason for paying a finders fee to Gabriel was the fact that
Assangecampaign-AU is not a charity. Therefore, we would not have been able to
transfer funds to it apart from concrete projects, which always put a high
administrative overhead on us. The way out was to declare the payment a “finders
fee”, which is possible under German charity law. Therefore we transferred 3.5%
of Pac’s ETH donation to an ETH account that had been set up by Gabriel. And,
afaik, there is still a substantial amount on that account. Please be careful,
some information may not be entirely accurate as I am doing this off the top of
my head.
Please feel free to ask more questions. You are the first person we are
communicating with in the environment of the assange campaign besides Flick.
If we’rre discussing the one and same organisation (and I don’t know whether there was more than one) - in Australia this entity is described as the following and could have operated as a charity.
Recently I discovered that there is an ‘Assange Campaign Incorporated’ and it was registered in Victoria, Australia in April 2022. At this point it could be a business or it could be a charity. Can’t work it out any further. It may not be based within Australia too.
If Wau Holland has transferred funds to a business they may be in breach of German law. That’s why I fear that the unspent funds may actually be lost.
from WHS,they acknowledge the legal provisions that favor them but remain unresponsive to the significance of donors’ intentions in reclaiming the remaining funds.
I am sorry to hear that. But we will not make this our problem.
We looked up German laws,the rules regarding unused donated funds to a
foundation under the German Stiftungsaufsicht (Foundation Supervision Authority)
are primarily focused on ensuring that the donations are used in accordance with
the foundation’s purpose and the donor’s intentions.
We saw the tweet about chatGPT’s opininon on German foundation law. We were
impressed, how accurate it was.
On the ownership of the remaining funds, we hope to consider the will of real donors.
I agree. Again, we did not misuse the donation. And, as written in the
transparency report, we will negotiate the use of the remaining funds with our
tax advisor, the Stiftungsaufsicht, and the tax office. Please not that we are
active in politically sensitive projects and therefore, we can just not afford
the slightest incorrect spending of funds or else we will loose our charity
status. We have already experienced such a political intervention in 2010 when
the “cables” got out. Our charity status was recalled in 2010, but we got it
back in 2011.
as the legal donor, Pak could potentially reclaim these funds, but we haven’t made such an attempt. I think the possibility of Pak reclaiming the funds definitely exists. we should contact with Pak. the donor’s intentions is important on remaining 3681eth.
It’s unfair to say that pak got paid. Pak started another new project at the same time as auctioning the clock, and DAO just helped him publicize. We can be sure that the money pak got in that project did not come from the treasury of DAO. There may be many people involved in DAO who contributed funds to pak’s new project, but to be fair, those funds were not entirely contributed by DAO fans. Pak was very famous before DAO, and he had his own Fans, those who participated in that new project and contributed remuneration also did not participate in DAO. On the contrary, pak’s popularity has also driven his fans to understand this DAO and donate to DAO.
Also if we are to sell the NFT - it should be displayed.
In most auction scenarios, the winning bidder is considered the source of the funds, as they are the ones paying for the auctioned item (here, the NFT). Pak did not provide funds; they received the payment for the NFT from the DAO. They were the recipient of the auction. Wau Holland is another recipient - not the donor. Both Pak and Wau Holland are recipients.
Thanks Peter, thank you for your warm and friendly suggestions. the community believes you are an objective and fair third party. we need you to provide us with more suggestions and actively share your views about this place.
Why do you keep treating Park as the main force in rescuing Assange? You’ve been confusing the process. Everyone’s donations are for Mr. Assange, not to buy Park’s meaningless digital NFT! I’m telling you very clearly: all donors are doing it to save Mr. Assange, not for that NFT. NFTs are worthless. This auction process is just an intermediary to circumvent legal liability. Everyone knows this, but you keep twisting the facts. How shameless! Once again, Park is just an intermediary hired to help. They are not the ones saving Assange. It’s everyone in this community who is saving Mr. Assange!
If the program stated that Park was the only donor, then the auction process was definitely a scam, because all the publicity was for Mr. Assange’s free donation, and 99% of people were unaware that the money was used to buy Park’s NFTs. If Assange had clearly stated in advance that all the money was used to purchase NFTs, would the donation process have gone smoothly? Could Assange have raised tens of millions of dollars?
You’re correct - 670 ETH was Pak’s take for an open edition of NFTs that allowed buyers to input text that was crossed out by a thick line to create NFTs. That was the second fundraiser.
