Fertigmachen für kommende Bankenrettungen

Aus der letzten Krise wurde nichts gelernt. Banken geraten ins Wanken und mit dem aus der Finanzkrise bekannten Dominoeffekt wird das verheerende Wirkungen zeigen

Aus der letzten Krise wurde nichts gelernt. Banken geraten ins Wanken und mit dem aus der Finanzkrise bekannten Dominoeffekt wird das verheerende Wirkungen zeigen

CIA-Methoden im Kreml?

Die Behörden der Republik Belarus haben Dutzende russischer Söldner festgenommen, die der versuchten Destabilisierung im Vorfeld der Wahlen beschuldigt werden

Die Behörden der Republik Belarus haben Dutzende russischer Söldner festgenommen, die der versuchten Destabilisierung im Vorfeld der Wahlen beschuldigt werden

Dragonship Endeavour is flying free, on its way back to Earth

A splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico is not without risks.

Crew Dragon backs away from the International Space Station on Saturday.

Enlarge / Crew Dragon backs away from the International Space Station on Saturday. (credit: NASA TV)

On Saturday evening the Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, named Dragonship Endeavour, undocked from the International Space Station to begin its journey home.

The undocking came after NASA and SpaceX determined the spacecraft would find calm seas and light winds off the coast from the Florida Panhandle, in the Gulf of Mexico, on Sunday. This will be the first water landing for a U.S. spacecraft since 1975, when an Apollo capsule splashed down after the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in the Pacific Ocean. Landing is slated for 2:48pm ET (18:40 UTC). A final call on weather will be made on Sunday.

After moving away from the "Keep Out Sphere" surrounding the space station, Endeavour will put distance between itself and the orbiting laboratory before performing more engine burns. This will set the spacecraft up for a de-orbit burn on Sunday, about 50 minutes before splashdown. Asked what he and Behnken would spend most of their final night in space doing, Hurley quipped during a news conference with reporters this week, "Sleeping."

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The Pirate Bay Receives Under $5 in Bitcoin Donations Per Day

When The Pirate Bay added support for Bitcoin donations in 2013, copyright holders were worried. Cryptocurrencies provided a new revenue stream that was impossible to stop. Today, Bitcoin donations continue to roll in, but for the TPB team it’s little more than lunch money, currently averaging less than $5 per day.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

pirate bayThe Pirate Bay has been both an early adopter and a pioneer when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

More than seven years ago the torrent site added support for Bitcoin donations, with Litecoin and Monero following later.

The Pirate Bay was also the first large website to start mining cryptocurrency by using the computing resources of is visitors. This was a controversial move, but one that was followed by many other sites.

Bitcoin Scared Copyright Holders

The fact that cryptocurrency transactions don’t involve any banks or other authorities was a scary thought for rightsholders. Early on, the music industry’s anti-piracy group RIAA alerted the US Government to this emerging threat.

“In April 2013, the site started accepting donations from the public by Bitcoin, a digital currency, which operates using peer-to-peer technology,” the RIAA informed the US Government.

“There are no central authority or banks involved which makes it very difficult to seize or trace Bitcoin funds. In May 2013, the site also started accepting Litecoin, another peer-to-peer based internet currency.”

The RIAA was right to state that Bitcoin does indeed make it harder to seize funds. That said, tracing Pirate Bay donations isn’t all that hard. In fact, all transactions are transparent and visible to the public at large, allowing anyone to see how much ‘money’ users are tipping the site.

Bitcoin Donations as Lunch Money, and More

Late April, when The Pirate Bay came back after over a month of downtime, it started using a new Bitcoin address so we decided to take another look at this revenue stream. As we’ve signaled in the past, cryptocurrency donations alone certainly can’t keep the site afloat.

bitcoin tpb donations

The first transaction to the new Bitcoin address, a sizeable 0.007 BTC, came in late April. Since then, 23 donations followed, totaling 0.042 BTC. That equates to roughly $450 the current exchange rate.

This is less than $5 per day. Even if we added the Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash donations, which are much lower, the $5 barrier would not be reached.

In other words, Bitcoin donations are not the threat copyright holders envisioned early on. As we have shown earlier, it’s still nothing more than lunch money. Apparently, millions of Pirate Bay users are not that generous.

Still, TPB does outperform the competition when it comes to donations. For example, 1337x, which also prominently lists a Bitcoin address on its site, earned roughly $0.50 per day over the past several months.

That said, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may still be instrumental in keeping pirate sites afloat. Donations aside, they allow site owners to pay for servers and hardware relatively anonymously. This makes it possible to counter the follow-the-money approach many anti-piracy groups use.

Fetured image: Steve Garfield (cc 2.0)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.