Popular peer-to-peer file-sharing site The Pirate Bay (TPB) seems like the perfect platform to embrace Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. For years, the sites have been targeted by companies, copy-right owners, and regulators across the world.
Yet, the platform is live and possibly with millions in donations made in Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Monero. These are the cryptocurrencies, with their respective addresses, available for people to contribute.
According to a report made by Torrentfreak, The Pirate Bay receives a “steady stream of Bitcoin donations”. Data shared by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) claimed in a 2013 report that these could add up to around $10 each day since 2013.
The platform was one of the first to accept Bitcoin donations in that period, the report claims. When the option was launched, a BTC traded at around $125. This brought many concerns for regulators and the RIAA.
This option gave the platform more flexibility, and it was able to become more censorship-resistant. The website allows users to share multimedia files, books, games, comics, and more.
At its peak, shortly after it integrated BTC donations, The Pirate Bay made about 5.5 BTC per day, but the quick appreciation in its price has caused them to drop off.
A quick search with the Mempool confirms that, at the time of writing, the platform holds $145.77 in Bitcoin or 0.002 BTC.
If added to these donations, the platform held on to its BTC funds since the early days, Torrentfreak estimates that The Pirate Bay could be “sitting on a massive pile of cryptocurrency today”.
Bitcoin Makes The Pirate Bay More Censorship Resistance
Additional data provided by Torrentfreak claims that between 2013 and 2015, The Pirate Bay received over 126.64 Bitcoin via donations. In 2016, the platform added 8.21 BTC more with 1 BTC coming since the cryptocurrency reached its previous all-time at $20,000 in 2017.
Thus, the report concluded that The Pirate Bay could have around $6,8 million in BTC donations if they held to their funds. This represents a donation inflow of about $2,000, each day since 2013.
A lot of the credit goes to the people behind the project, and the community focused on improving the platform. However, it also demonstrates Bitcoin’s capacity to aid certain projects subjected to pressure from regulators, authorities.
It’s possible that without BTC as a way to receive support, the platform could have been taken down a lot of time ago. As Bitcoinist reported a few days ago, content platform OnlyFans suffered a lot of pressure from banks and payment processors to ban sexual workers.
Nevertheless, The Pirate Bay has been searching for a more efficient mechanism to receive donations. Thus, it launched its own native token called TPB.
The token is yet to gain traction but could enable users, moderators, partners, and others to earn and send rewards more directly.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $48,915 with a 1.2% rally in the daily chart.
