Reddit user discovers 7zip file possibly linked to Julian Assange hidden in bitcoin blockchain
Among the thousands of inscriptions added to the bitcoin blockchain via ordinals, a 7zip file belonging to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was recently discovered. The r/bitcoin subreddit was notified of the discovery by a Reddit user known as “u/sprxzk34620”, and the post stated that an encrypted 7zip file possibly belonging to Julian Assange was found in the bitcoin blockchain. is hidden somewhere and the author reports that the file is definitely obtainable by separating of all output scripts from a particular transaction or that we can obtain it. “The encrypted 7zip file contains a file called ‘Julianassange.txt’ but attempts to purchase the file have failed,” said a Reddit user, and a commenter on the same post asked why Assange would add it to the bitcoin blockchain. Some cited speculation that the “dead man’s switch” was definitely made. One person wrote that, “It could be an encrypted penis of the switch or even a garlic expose file”, while others doubt it and they said that a zip file named “Julianassange.txt” appears to be a fraud and is a hoax.
Coincidence it certainly happened 5 days before Assange read the bitcoin blockchain hash from block 447,506 in a video recorded by Assange as we can see on 5 January 2017 that the transaction with the 7zip file is believed to be at that time. It was alleged that the whistleblower had used this tactic to prove that he was alive and that despite him being alive, Assange said he was not well when he visited the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Of course they say “don’t take some cryptographic evidence as proof that I’m fine and I’ve been kept here for 8 years and I wasn’t fine the whole time”. Assange’s Ecuadorian asylum was revoked and he was arrested on 11 April 2019 when his embassy was raided by police. The contents of the 7zip file remain unknown and of no use until someone successfully obtains it as it may not be definitively related or associated with Assange. This post written by u/sprxzk34620 concludes discussions on whether adding data to the bitcoin blockchain via ordinals was a good practice as it has sparked controversy among some bitcoin advocates. One Redditor chimed in by saying that if everyone is posting stupid cat JPEGs on the blockchain, then surely he can keep buying new hard drives for his node.
