8chan founder/administrator and #Gamergate hero Fredrick Brennan has been kicked off Gratipay and is now accepting donations Bitcoin only. He's now forced to do his accounting in the same untraceable, decentralized cryptocurrency favored by hackers, drug dealers and arms traffickers.
I guess Brennan's donor base could call it blacklisting. I'd say Hotwheels being forced to get Bitcoin donations in the currency he deserves. And it's not as if Gamergate's "based" hero is really for want of cash.
In the month of May, 8ch.net has earned Brennan $3,946 worth of Bitcoin donations. Since August 2014, he's earned at least $15,252.12 from Patreon, Gratipay, and Bitcoin.
These donations are from the same people who routinely use Brennan's platform to co-ordinate illegal activity such as identity theft, domestic terrorism, and the distribution of child pornography.
Who knew that hosting terrorist imageboards could be so profitable?
Brennan's History on Patreon and Gratipay
Let me be clear: 8chan's financial success has gone hand in hand with Gamergate's emigration to the platform. When Gamergate began, Brennan barely received 450$ a month on Patreon for hosting costs. By the end of December 2015, Brennan was earning 1558$ a month from the platform, a more than threefold increase. (He was banned from Patreon around New Year's 2015, after Canadian citizen Dan Olson published a report of exactly how much child porn was on 8chan.) In total, Brennan earned $5,863 from Patreon before taxes and fees.
Brennan's Patreon Income, Aug - Dec 2014
Getting banned from Patreon seemed to incense Brennan, and his supporters. He turned to another crowdfunding platform, Gratipay, to get his needs met. Brennan solicited donations on Gratipay between January 2015 and Mid-April, when Gratipay itself decided Hotwheels was too hot to handle.
Though I only tracked Brennan's income from Gratipay until mid-March, archives from the Wayback Machine confirm that he continued receiving ~$250 per week in donations until his account was closed. In total, Brennan earned an estimated $3,130 from Gratipay.
Fredrick Brennan's Weekly Gratipay Income, January - March 2015
Brennan and Bitcoin
Brennan has always invited people to donate Bitcoins to him, even before it became his only way of getting financial oxygen.
Bitcoin has advantages if you're as tech-literate as Hotwheels, because it is completely untraceable, and, unlike Patreon, does not charge any fees for use. Its infamous volatility, Brennan explains, is mitigated if he immediately exchanges Bitcoin donations for cash (which he actually doesn't do, he speculates with it a little.)
However, because of how Bitcoin works, the transaction record of any particular wallet is a matter of public record.
From Brennan's standpoint, this may be a flaw, since by soliciting donations to these addresses, Brennan allows me to track the balance of the wallets he uses for donations.
The donations trickle in piecemeal, but Hotwheels tends to convert them into real currency in batches; waiting until the exchange rate is favorable, or when Bitcoin seems poised to take a serious tumble.
To calculate the total amount of money Brennan has earned from Bitcoin donations, I simply checked his transaction history, made a note of the withdrawals he made, and converted the amount of bitcoins he withdrew to USD based on that day's exchange rate.
Proceeds from Brennan's Sales of Bitcoin, according to his wallet transaction history.
I can be sure these wallets belonged to Brennan because he solicited donations to these addresses. However, Brennan might also have received donations in additional Bitcoin wallets I'm not aware of.
Brennan has, in total, made an estimated $15,252.12 in donations since Gamergate began in August 2014. Brennan earned this money by giving white supremacists, identity thieves, hackers, child pornographers, and domestic terrorists a place to congregate and freely organize. His clients gave him this money, so that they can continue their illegal activities with his blessing.
Brennan has given it. After all, it is very profitable to play host to criminals.