According to a post on the Reddit community r/bitcoin, an old file was discovered that may be linked to Julian Assange, the whistleblower and founder of Wikileaks. The encrypted 7zip file is in the output script of a transaction that took place on January 5, 2017, and was mined at block height 446,713.
Speculation surrounds the purpose of 7zip file named ‘Julianassange.Txt’ found in Bitcoin Blockchain
Amid thousands of inscriptions added to the Bitcoin blockchain via Ordinals, a 7zip file possibly linked to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was recently discovered. A Reddit user under the name “u/sprxzk34620” informed the r/bitcoin subreddit of the discovery. The post said: “An encrypted 7zip file possibly related to Julian Assange is hidden in the Bitcoin blockchain.” The author also noted that the file could be obtained by splicing the pubkhash segment of all the output scripts from a specific transaction.
Screenshot from Redditor u/sprxzk34620.
“The encrypted 7zip file contains a file called ‘Julianassange.txt’ but attempts to crack the file have failed,” the Reddit user added. Commenters on the Reddit post questioned why Assange would add this to the Bitcoin blockchain, with some citing speculation that he created a “dead man’s switch.” “It could be an encrypted link to the switch or files that reveal secrets,” one person wrote. Others were skeptical, saying that a zip file named “Julianassange.txt” sounds like a hoax.
Coincidentally, the January 5, 2017 transaction with the 7zip file occurred five days before Assange read the Bitcoin blockchain hash from block height 447,506 in a recorded video. At the time, many believed that the whistleblower used this tactic to prove that he was alive. Despite being alive, Assange stated that he was not well while confined in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
“Don’t take any cryptographic evidence as proof that I’m okay,” he stressed at the time. “I’m not. I’ve been kept here for eight years. I haven’t been well the whole time.” Since then, Assange’s Ecuadorian asylum was revoked and he was arrested on 11 April 2019, when police raided the embassy. The contents of the 7zip file are unknown until someone manages to crack it, as it may not belong to or be associated with Assange at all.
The Reddit post written by u/sprxzk34620 ended with a heated discussion about whether add arbitrary data to the Bitcoin blockchain through Ordinals was a legitimate practice, as it has sparked controversy among some bitcoin advocates. “If everyone is going to post stupid cat JPEGs on the blockchain, I can keep buying new hard drives for my node… F*** the hell out. Keep it compact guys,” one Redditor stressed.
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7zip file, 8 years, Arrest, asylum, Bitcoin, bitcoin lawyers, Blockchain, confinement, controversy, cryptographic evidence, Dead Man’s Switch, discussion, Ecuadorian embassy, encrypted, File Assange, file named JulianAssange.txt, hard drives, hoax , JPEGs , Julian Assange, legitimate practice, London, Node, ordinals, proof of life, pubkhash se, Reddit, Reddit Community, Reddit Post, revocation of asylum, secrets, Transaction, u/sprxzk34620, Video, alerts, Wikileaks, Wikileaks founder
What do you think the contents of the encrypted 7zip file might reveal? Let us know your thoughts on this topic in the comments section below.
Jamie Redman
Jamie Redman is the news editor at Bitcoin.com News and a financial technology journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open source and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 6,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.
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