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The Pirate Bay Gets a 'Massive' $9 in Donations Per Day (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by msmash on from the people-don't-like-paying-for-piracy dept.

An anonymous reader writes: When The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites started accepting Bitcoin donations a few years ago, copyright holders voiced concerns about this new 'unseizable' revenue stream. Thus far, this fear seems unwarranted with TPB raking in an average of $9 per day in Bitcoin donations over the past year. While hardly a windfall, it's a fortune compared to the donations received by the leading torrent site KickassTorrents.

3 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. What did you expect? by p51d007 · · Score: 0, Insightful

    People "stealing" content, to actually PAY money to the server hosting it?

  2. It would be somewhat dumb to pay by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bitcoin, in it's raw form, is the most traceable currency in existence. Thus if one is planning to engage in clandestine activity it might be unwise to set up a link between pirate bay's public key and your private key. Such a link would exist for all time. So if at any time your key get's linked to a real identity because for example you order a pizza ten years from now or the credit card you used to buy the bit coins from Mt Gox is in Mt. Gox's records under control of the Japanese police, then you are linked to Pirate Bay.

    The saving grace I supposed it that in itself is not a crime. But that's not what on your mind if you were hoping nobody finds out.

    You could of course use some tumbler to launder the transaction but then you are trusting the tumbler company.

    Someday we'll all be able to buy a disposable bitcoin gift card in the super market with cash but until then there's always possible way to trace it back to you (in most cases).

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:It would be somewhat dumb to pay by cfalcon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > Bitcoin, in it's raw form, is the most traceable currency in existence.

      Not really.

      Bitcoin is, as you point out, fully backtraceable. That's the whole point of blockchain. Now, there's various ways to "launder" it, but that's not really important. The important part is:

      If you want to LEGALLY donate to something politically charged, bitcoin could EASILY be a really good method for you. If you:
      1)- Buy bit coins at some place that is as normal as bitcoin institutions get- say, coinbase... and then...
      2)- Push the coins straight to your donation target from there.

      Then you are pretty safe. No "bitcoin washer", no darknet bullshit, not even one extra step of transferring to your own wallet first for plausible deniability. In order to trace that transaction, someone would need to be able to ask the bitcoin place you paid in cash, which transactions you did. Who can do that? Well, the government. But, you didn't commit a crime, so they won't. It's no crime to donate to piratebay, or sci-hub, or whatever.

      Lets pretend you had to donate normally, with, like, a credit card. Now when piratebay gets in trouble, or gets hacked, some jackass has a list of everyone who donated. Said jackass then smears your good name, because you donated to those pirates / left wingers / right wingers / whatevers.

      The advantage that bitcoin buys you is that you really ARE anonymous- as long as you aren't doing anything illegal. "Not being doxxed" is a pretty good benefit, right?

      And of course, you COULD take some simple steps like pushing the money to your wallet first, or whatever. You have plenty of other options if you want to make it hard for someone looking to pierce your anonymity to do so. But we aren't talking about something illegal here, so the practical avenues of people with an agenda looking to smear you or attack you are very slim.