Pirate’s Treasure: How the World’s Leading Torrent Site Pirate Bay Amassed $4.5 Million in Bitcoin
The Pirate Bay has been the world’s most popular torrent web portal for the last eighteen years. Despite a few hiccups during that time, the site remains accessible via mirrors and proxy websites. In addition to remaining online, Pirate Bay has been accepting bitcoin for donations since 2013 acquiring more than $4.5 million worth since then.
The Pirate Bay’s Bitcoin Stash
Since 2003, when it was founded by the Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, the Pirate Bay has been the most popular, and perhaps the most beloved torrent website in the world. The web portal is basically an index of digital content hosted online so users can download, own, and seed the content via Bittorrent technology.
Of course, in 2009, the Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, and Fredrik Neij got into some trouble over copyright laws. While the founders dealt with prison sentences during that time, the Pirate Bay continued to operate and in 2013, the web portal announced it was accepting bitcoin donations.
In fact, the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin wrote about it during the week the Pirate Bay announced bitcoin support. Buterin discussed the acceptance when he was contributing articles to Bitcoin Magazine in April 2013. The ETH cofounder noted at the time that the Pirate Bay raised over 10 BTC, worth $1,300 that month in 2013, during the first day of donations.
“Other major torrent sites have quickly started to do the same thing,” Buterin said. “EZTV, Openbittorrent, Publicbittorrent, and istole.it have all added bitcoin donation addresses onto their front pages,” he added.
Are Pirate Bay Founders Bitcoin Rich?
Of course, since then the Pirate Bay has changed its bitcoin (BTC) donation address since then and at the end of 2019, speculation was abound concerning how much the site has accumulated over time.
The first BTC address the Pirate Bay used was mentioned by Buterin in his article and that empty address once held 22.57 BTC. In another publicly known donation address the Pirate Bay leveraged, the operation accumulated 13.37 BTC. But the Pirate Bay also had another BTC address which gathered 76.80 BTC in donations. In the Torrentfreak speculation article, the report adds up the daily income it made between accepting LTC and BTC.
Torrentfreak’s Ernesto Van der Sar added up all the funds received since 2013 and up until 2016, he reported that the Pirate Bay made a donation average of $9.34 per day. Fast forward to 2019 and the researchers disclosed that it had risen to $13.16 per day in BTC and $0.40 per day in litecoin (LTC).
All of the aforementioned BTC addresses have been emptied and onchain analysis shows the coins were consolidated and then mixed using a form of the Coinjoin protocol. The Pirate Bay still gets donations today but they have tapered off a great deal since 2015.
What do you think about the Pirate Bay’s accumulated hoard of bitcoins since 2013? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
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GameStop mayhem, Robinhood scandal, Musk tweets, DOGE explodes: Hodler’s Digest, Jan. 24–30
The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — one week on Cointelegraph in one link!
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Ukraine to Set up a Large-Scale Crypto Mining Data Center in a Nuclear Power Plant
Ukraine’s government-owned nuclear power plant picked a firm to build a massive data center in Rivne for cryptocurrency mining operations. After a bidding process, Energoatom chose Kyiv Energy Construction Company to handle the nuclear plant crypto mining project.
Nuclear Power Plant Operator Expects to Launch the Data Center in 2022
According to official documents, the data center will be based in the Rivne nuclear power plant, after the construction firm got 8.92 million Hryvnia ($317,620) in funding. The only competitor in the bidding was Ukrenergobudproek. However, they allegedly made an expensive offer, said the regional news outlet Forklog.
The Kyiv Energy Construction Company expects to finish the data center building by August 31, 2022. Per the announcement, the contractor is required to send the documentation that details the whole process. It includes “host state registers, electronic archives, and computing facilities.”
In terms of technical details, the nuclear power plant has a capacity of 2,657 megawatts, and it was built in the late 1970s. Also, the operations of the state-owned nuclear facilities started at the beginning of 1980.
In October 2020, Energoatom also signed a memorandum with a subsidiary of crypto mining giant Bitfury. With the new data center, local media outlets believe Bitfury miners could move their operations into the power plant’s facilities.
Ukraine’s Interest Towards Building Crypto Mining Data Centers in Nuclear Plants
The deal between Energoatom and Kyiv Energy Construction Company is not a surprising move. In fact, the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine asked Energoatom in May 2020 to conduct research to assess crypto mining’s feasibility at their nuclear plants.
As an anecdotal fact in terms of crypto mining in Ukrainian nuclear plants, the nation’s Security Service found illegal crypto mining equipment in a nuclear power plant in 2019.
The installation’s illegal mining rigs were found in the Southern region of Ukraine. Moreover, the investigations determined that such illegal equipment breached a “state secret.”
What do you think about this announcement of building crypto mining data centers in nuclear power plants? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Indian Parliament to Consider Bill That Creates Digital Rupee While Banning Cryptocurrencies in Current Session
The Indian government has finally moved forward with a cryptocurrency bill. Entitled “The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021,” the bill has been listed for consideration in the current parliamentary session of Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament. It seeks to create a framework for India’s official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) but prohibit all cryptocurrencies.
Indian Government Set to Introduce Cryptocurrency Bill in Current Parliamentary Session
After almost two years of waiting, the Indian government has finally moved forward with a cryptocurrency bill. According to Lok Sabha’s bulletin dated Jan. 29, the bill entitled “The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021” is listed for consideration in the current parliamentary session. The budget session of Parliament commenced on Friday and will conclude on April 8, with a recess between Feb. 15 and March 8. The union budget will be presented on Feb. 1.
The bulletin lists the bills the Indian government has sent to be taken up during the budget session. Among them is the cryptocurrency bill, whose description reads:
To create a facilitative framework for [the] creation of the official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India. The bill also seeks to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India, however, it allows for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses.
The Mint publication explained: “In the legislative order of business for the budget session of 17th Lok Sabha that commenced today, the government has listed a bill providing for the banning of all private cryptocurrencies in India such as bitcoin, ether, ripple, and others.”
This bill to ban cryptocurrencies resembles the crypto bill drafted by an interministerial committee (IMC) headed by former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg. That bill, dated February 2019, was unveiled by the finance ministry in July 2019. It proposes to ban all private cryptocurrencies and provides for the creation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital rupee. Garg has since resigned from his government work and the finance ministry had been silent on the bill until now.
On Monday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) published a booklet on India’s payment systems acknowledging the popularity of cryptocurrencies. The central bank also confirmed that it is “exploring the possibility as to whether there is a need for a digital version of fiat currency and in case there is, then how to operationalise it.” In December, the finance ministry was reported to be considering imposing an 18% goods and services tax (GST) on bitcoin transactions.
First Introduction of Crypto Bill in Parliament, Crypto Community’s Reaction
Although there have been reports of the Indian government planning to prohibit cryptocurrencies before, this is the first time that a bill to ban crypto has been listed for consideration in Lok Sabha.
The Indian crypto community disapproves of the government’s decision. “That’s insane,” one Twitter user wrote. Another warned that the RBI better not ban bitcoin, stating that the “Crypto bill should not be a FUD at this point or India will miss out on the momentum and innovation in the decentralization space.”
The CEO of the Indian crypto exchange Wazirx, Nischal Shetty, commented: “A country as large as India should at least work on understanding the underlying terminologies before presenting technology-related bills in parliament. Seems like a hurried move. If done wrong, this can potentially destroy a lot of value held by the general public.” He added, “Let’s hope this is a precursor to positive crypto regulations,” emphasizing:
Just because a bill is presented doesn’t mean it’ll be cleared … Wrong or hasty regulations will set us back by a decade. Right regulations will catapult India to the forefront of this technology.
“We have leaders who are technologically capable and they’ll definitely raise issues around this,” the CEO believes.
Neeraj Khandelwal, co-founder and chief technology officer at Coindcx, another Indian cryptocurrency exchange, pointed out that it is estimated that there are more than five million Indians holding “a combined wealth of $10 billion in bitcoin which is 2% of India’s forex reserves, taxation on crypto can fetch a few billion dollars in taxes to the Indian govt.” He reiterated that “Previous attempts to ban bitcoin in India have been unsuccessful. The industry has survived 2 years during the RBI imposed banking ban.”
The Indian crypto ban news came after a price spike in bitcoin following Tesla CEO Elon Musk changing his Twitter profile to “#bitcoin” and tweeted, “In retrospect, it was inevitable.”
Do you think India will ban crypto? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Federal Court Rejects Motion Filed by Crypto Developer Virgil Griffith to Dismiss Charges on Aiding North Korea
A U.S. federal judge has rejected a motion filed by a former Ethereum Foundation developer over allegations of assisting North Korea to bypass sanctions. Prosecutors claim, Virgil Griffith, aided the regime by providing critical information on cryptocurrencies.
Prosecutors Say Griffith’s Speech Was About the Use of Cryptos to Circumvent Sanctions
Per Law360, a jury is now set to determine if Griffith violated the International Emergency Economic Powers Act by giving a speech at the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference in 2019.
Kevin Castel, a U.S. District Judge, denied Griffith’s motion because the “short and vague” four-page indictment lacked specific details of his alleged criminal actions. He further commented on the matter:
Examining the indictment in light of the parties’ arguments, the court concludes that it provides adequate notice of the charges against Griffith sufficient to enable him to prepare for trial and, if it becomes necessary, plead double jeopardy as a defense. Further, upon review of the law governing the offense conduct, the indictment states a federal crime and violates no constitutional prohibition.
Prosecutors accused the former Ethereum Foundation developer of giving a speech in Pyongyang about the use of cryptocurrencies to get around U.S. economic sanctions.
Griffith was arrested on Thanksgiving Day in 2019. However, on December 30, 2019, he was granted bail by U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick.
Many crypto supporters stood up for Griffith’s cause when he was arrested, and influencers like John McAfee called the U.S. government “corrupt at the core.”
Griffith didn’t receive permission from the U.S. Department of Justice to travel to South Korea for the conference. However, per court documents, he got the approval of the North Korean United Nations (UN) Mission in Manhattan and was granted a visa.
Griffith Claims His Speech Was Based on Publicly-Available Information About Blockchain
The Ethereum proponent alleges he gave very basic information about blockchain to about 100 North Koreans who attended his speech. Also, he adds that everything said in his participation is publicly available on the internet. However, prosecutors believe North Korea could use his speech’s content to launder money and bypass sanctions potentially.
Also, the court revealed a message sent by Griffith to colleagues in 2018 before his speech, which reads as follow:
We’d love to make an Ethereum trip to the DPRK and set up an Ethereum node … It’ll help them circumvent the current sanctions on them.
But the former blockchain developer claimed in his rejected motion that such speech was protected by the First Amendment freedom of speech.
As of press time, the court date for Griffith’s case is still set for September 2021.
What do you think about this federal judge’s decision? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Crypto Fund Manager Charged in $5M Ponzi Scheme, Facing up to 30 Years in US Prison
A cryptocurrency fund manager has been charged in a U.S. federal court. He allegedly took over $5 million from investors interested in investing in his crypto funds, promising them high returns. In reality, he was running a Ponzi scheme and is now facing up to 30 years in prison.
Crypto Fund Manager Arrested for Running a Ponzi Scheme
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday that Jeremy Spence has been arrested and charged in Manhattan federal court in a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme. The 24-year-old from Bristol, Rhode Island, is also known as “Coin Signals.”
Spence is “a cryptocurrency trader who solicited funds for various cryptocurrency funds that he operated, with commodities fraud and wire fraud offenses,” the DOJ described, adding:
Spence took cryptocurrency worth over $5 million from more than 170 individual investors after making false representations in connection with these cryptocurrency funds.
U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss explained that the defendant “allegedly lured investors to his cryptocurrency investment scam by touting returns of up to 148%.” However, his investment pools consistently lost money.
FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Sweeney further detailed that Spence allegedly “used money from new investors to pay off others in order to keep his plan moving — a typical marker of a Ponzi scheme.”
According to the Justice Department, from November 2017 through April 2019, Spence solicited investors for several cryptocurrency investment funds that he had created and managed. Investors “would transfer cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin and ethereum,” to him to invest in the funds for them. The DOJ elaborated:
The largest and most active of which were the Coin Signals Bitmex Fund, a/k/a the ‘CS Mex Fund,’ the Coin Signals Alternative Fund, a/k/a the ‘CS Alt Fund,’ and the Coin Signals Long Term Fund.
Spence is charged with one count of commodities fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has also filed a federal civil enforcement action against Spence, charging him with fraud for operating the Ponzi scheme.
What do you think about this case? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Pirate’s Treasure: How the World’s Leading Torrent Site Pirate Bay Amassed $4.5 Million in Bitcoin
The Pirate Bay has been the world’s most popular torrent web portal for the last eighteen years. Despite a few hiccups during that time, the site remains accessible via mirrors and proxy websites. In addition to remaining online, Pirate Bay has been accepting bitcoin for donations since 2013 acquiring more than $4.5 million worth since then.
The Pirate Bay’s Bitcoin Stash
Since 2003, when it was founded by the Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, the Pirate Bay has been the most popular, and perhaps the most beloved torrent website in the world. The web portal is basically an index of digital content hosted online so users can download, own, and seed the content via Bittorrent technology.
Of course, in 2009, the Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, and Fredrik Neij got into some trouble over copyright laws. While the founders dealt with prison sentences during that time, the Pirate Bay continued to operate and in 2013, the web portal announced it was accepting bitcoin donations.
In fact, the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin wrote about it during the week the Pirate Bay announced bitcoin support. Buterin discussed the acceptance when he was contributing articles to Bitcoin Magazine in April 2013. The ETH cofounder noted at the time that the Pirate Bay raised over 10 BTC, worth $1,300 that month in 2013, during the first day of donations.
“Other major torrent sites have quickly started to do the same thing,” Buterin said. “EZTV, Openbittorrent, Publicbittorrent, and istole.it have all added bitcoin donation addresses onto their front pages,” he added.
Are Pirate Bay Founders Bitcoin Rich?
Of course, since then the Pirate Bay has changed its bitcoin (BTC) donation address since then and at the end of 2019, speculation was abound concerning how much the site has accumulated over time.
The first BTC address the Pirate Bay used was mentioned by Buterin in his article and that empty address once held 22.57 BTC. In another publicly known donation address the Pirate Bay leveraged, the operation accumulated 13.37 BTC. But the Pirate Bay also had another BTC address which gathered 76.80 BTC in donations. In the Torrentfreak speculation article, the report adds up the daily income it made between accepting LTC and BTC.
Torrentfreak’s Ernesto Van der Sar added up all the funds received since 2013 and up until 2016, he reported that the Pirate Bay made a donation average of $9.34 per day. Fast forward to 2019 and the researchers disclosed that it had risen to $13.16 per day in BTC and $0.40 per day in litecoin (LTC).
All of the aforementioned BTC addresses have been emptied and onchain analysis shows the coins were consolidated and then mixed using a form of the Coinjoin protocol. The Pirate Bay still gets donations today but they have tapered off a great deal since 2015.
What do you think about the Pirate Bay’s accumulated hoard of bitcoins since 2013? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
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XRP price gains 86% after Wall Street Bets’ crypto wing says ‘pump it’
XRP price rallied 86% as members of a Reddit-based investing group shifted their focus from Dogecoin.
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Guggenheim Investments’ Scott Minerd Says There Is Insufficient Institutional Support to Sustain BTC Prices Above $30K
As bitcoin struggles to kickstart yet another record-breaking rally, Scott Minerd, the CIO at Guggenheim Investments says this could be down to the inadequate institutional support. According to Minerd’s assessment, this lack of sufficient institutional investor support means it will be hard for bitcoin to trade above $30,000.
The CIO, however, thinks the viability of the crypto as “an asset class is still very likely.” In a short video, Minerd chronicles bitcoin’s rise and how the crypto initially did not have a large enough market capitalization to attract institutions.
However, after the crypto rose to $10,000, perceptions changed. The CIO explains:
When we had bitcoin at $10,000, it was pretty easy to see that there was a clear path to $20,000.Once it went past $20,000 you could definitely see based on technical work how you could get to $35,000 or even higher.
Minerd, who has previously predicted a maximum price of $400,000 for the BTC, says the current investor base is not big enough to support a valuation above $30,000.
Not Everyone Agrees
However, not everyone agrees that bitcoin, which grew by more than 300% in 2020, will remain stuck at current prices. Michael Geiger, the CEO at a financial brokerage firm Libertex, disagrees with Minerd’s view. Geiger explains to News.bitcoin.com that “an overextension does not mean that bitcoin would permanently stay below the figure.” The CEO adds:
Eventually, bitcoin would move above the figure even in the lower part of the logarithmic regression band, provided that the asset still holds any meaningful value.
Meanwhile, despite Minerd’s comments, bitcoin has dropped below $30,000 only twice since January 1, 2020. At the time of writing, the crypto appears to have resumed its rally after it went past $37k handle for the first time since January 20.
Do you agree with Minerd’s prediction that BTC will struggle to stay above $30,000? You can tell us what you think in the comments section below.
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Bitcoin Miners Strain Under Semiconductor Supply Crunch, Second-Hand Mining Rig Prices Soar
Bitcoin mining rig manufacturers are dealing with a semiconductor supply crunch according to regional reports stemming from China. There’s been a global semiconductor supply shortage and it’s affecting nearly every type of business in the supply chain that manufactures cars, PCs, laptops, smartphones, and cryptocurrency mining devices. Moreover, the recent shortage has invoked the demand for second-hand and older generation mining rigs.
Semiconductor Shortage Complicates Mining Rig Manufacturing
Currently, the world is dealing with a semiconductor supply crunch which has been spurred by the aftermath of Covid-19 and the lockdowns. Automobile makers, PC manufacturers, smartphone production, and almost every electronics manufacturer under the sun is dealing with this issue. For instance, reports detail that auto giants like Toyota Motors, Nissan, Ford, Volkswagen, and more have been chomping at the bit to obtain microchips from suppliers like TSMC. On January 27, 2021, the financial reporter from China, Iyke Aru, reported on how the microchip supply shortage is “taking a toll on Chinese bitcoin miners.”
“The unique case of mining is complicated as a result of the coincidence with the increasing demand for Bitcoins and the associated expansion of the mining industry.” Aru details. Moreover, Aru also noted that because of the shortage “Chinese cryptocurrency miners are already scrambling for second-hand machines just to keep up with industry requirements.”
Second-Hand Machines, Older Generation Rigs, and ‘Too Many People Going for the Same Foundries’
Meanwhile, manufacturers and industry executives are hoping for other solutions to appear. During the second week of January, Nvidia revealed some cheaper types of semiconductors for computers that could possibly help the supply crunch, according to reports. Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy told Marketwatch in an interview that the shortage has impeded businesses working with semiconductor foundries. “There is not enough capacity at TSMC and at Samsung,” Moorhead explained. “There are too many people going for the same foundries.”
The scramble for second hand and older generation mining rigs has not just affected China but second markets in Europe and the U.S. have seen increased prices. For example on Ebay, there are hundreds of results for pre-owned S9s and even people selling bulk packages as well. Mining rig prices can be 2x to even 10x higher than what they were before the crypto economy’s bull run. The quantity of second-hand mining machines is far larger when it comes to older generation mining rigs, as new releases are much harder to obtain. There are far fewer listings on secondary markets and direct from the manufacturer deliveries are sold out until spring 2021.
What do you think about the semiconductor shortage taking a toll on the bitcoin mining industry? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
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