YYeTs fansub group recently announced to accept cryptocurrency donation on its Weibo (Chinese version of Twitter) with wallet addresses attached to receive bitcoin, ether and bitcoin cash, in a bid to ease the client bandwidth pressure and cover development expense.

“The number of our users is showing tremendous growth day by day, leaving our cache server and bandwidth far behind. At present, fund shortage is our big headache, and for security issues we’ve not been open to donations and sponsorship. As digital currencies win increasing popularity, it enlightens us on a new approach to donation and sponsorship. After thoughtful consideration, we decided to accept cryptocurrency donation from our fans (Only cryptocurrencies are accepted). Bitcoin, ether and bitcoin cash are accepted for the time being.”

As one of the earliest and largest fansub group in China, founded in 2003, YYeTs is an Internet-based group with voluntary fansubbers from all over the world. As its slogan goes, “to share, to learn, and to progress”, fansubbers are motivated by strong affection for films and TV dramas, and they have a sense of belonging and obligation to share the most up-to-date foreign films with other fans in their communities. All subtitled resources are provided to Internet users for free, which raises the alarm around the legalities of copyright. In 2014, YYeTs was listed in the “notorious markets” of the United States, its website, where over 1,400,000 fans were gathered, was formally shut down. In 2016, it finally came back and wins overwhelming popularity for its authentic and hilarious translation with a touch of humor and localized culture. American dramas like The Big Bang Theory, The Terror, The Walking Dead, Homeland, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, etc. fan-subtitled by YYeTs are quite popular in China and win large amount of binge-viewers.

On hearing this announcement, fans are active making donation, among which Zhao Dong, an early bitcoin adopter and now a bitcoin “whale” who is said holding 5-digit sum of bitcoins, said,

“What you guys are doing is good for this society, as a taker for so many years, I’ll donate one bitcoin to show my appreciation and support! [Thumb up]” “0.1 ether to show my support.” “Thanks for so many years’ giving! 100 RMB worth BCH.”

A guy even suggests them to initiate a fansub-related token or blockchain project for a better development. Many fans who do not hold any cryptocurrencies keep emailing YYeTs for other donating approaches but get kindly rejection. Later it retweeted an article about what blockchain is and its value, saying they are considering to take fans’ suggestion to get in blockchain.

YYeTs’ move is no doubt a good news to the crypto community, and shows a good example of bitcoin use. While mixed feelings might crowd in when one day we see bitcoin ads popping up when watching…