The Pirate Bay, one of the world’s best-known torrent portals, has been accepting bitcoin donations since 2013. Based on public wallet records and reported estimates, the site has accumulated bitcoin worth more than $4.5 million at later market values. Despite years of legal pressure, copyright disputes, and prison sentences involving its founders, the platform has remained accessible through mirrors and proxy sites.
Public wallet data shows the scale of early donations
Founded in 2003 by the Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay became one of the most prominent indexes for torrent-based content distribution. In 2013, the site announced that it would begin accepting bitcoin donations. At the time, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, then writing for Bitcoin Magazine, noted that the site received more than 10 BTC on its first day, worth roughly $1,300 at the time.
The site later changed its donation addresses multiple times. One early address reportedly held 22.57 BTC, another publicly known donation address received 13.37 BTC, and a third address collected 76.80 BTC. All of those addresses were later emptied. According to onchain analysis cited in the report, the funds were consolidated and then mixed using a method resembling the Coinjoin protocol.
Donations continue, but activity has slowed
Torrentfreak previously estimated that from 2013 through 2016, The Pirate Bay averaged about $9.34 per day in donations. By 2019, researchers said that figure had increased to $13.16 per day in bitcoin, plus roughly $0.40 per day in litecoin donations. Even so, donation activity appears to have tapered off significantly since 2015, although the platform still receives contributions.
The report also highlights a broader trend from the early crypto era: after The Pirate Bay adopted bitcoin donations, several other torrent-related sites added crypto donation addresses to their homepages as well. For platforms operating under constant legal and payment pressure, bitcoin’s cross-border utility and censorship-resistant nature made it an appealing funding option.