Donations for hosting expenses





The situation



, we moved to a new server so that the RIN owner could continue to afford hosting us and for various technical improvements. In April 2020, we learned that he could no longer afford to renew our server's subscription. Unfortunately, this was bound to happen sooner or later. From our observations, the traffic and therefore the advertisement revenue of RIN (the site network) has been in steady decline for the past ten years - except for us. In contrast, this forum has seen superlinear growth in recent years, but we are ad-free. In 2007, the network was comprised of around 20 servers. Ten years later, it was down to three.



Due to our performance and security requirements, it is not possible to host this forum at just any provider or on anything less than a full dedicated server. In fact, our previous dedicated server that was rented on a tight budget was running past its limits and significant efforts were put in to make it work. Funded by the community, we moved to a new server at the beginning of May 2020.



This community was incredibly lucky to be sponsored by the RIN owner for all of its 17 years of existence so far, which is a staggering amount of time in terms of internet history.



We, the staff, have put great thought into figuring out how to keep this forum online. Sadly, we have determined that we will not be able to finance the kind of hosting this forum requires by ourselves, even with the crappiest, bare-minimum server we could find. This means that since June 2020, we rely on donations from you, the community .



This is a significant announcement and we don't want to have ask this, but we see no other way. We want to make very clear that any and all donations will go exclusively towards hosting expenses and we will make this fact as transparent as possible. This means that all donations will remain in the publicly viewable wallets (see section "How to donate" further below) and all paysafecard codes will remain unredeemed until the funds are actually needed. Whenever funds are used, we will make a detailed post on conversion rates and what the resulting amounts are used for. There will be a reasonable trade-off between transparency and protecting everyone's privacy.





The costs



The cs.rin.ru domain will continue to be free for us. The server costs 99 EUR per month or 1188 EUR per year .





Status of funding



You can see the balance of all wallets listed below by clicking on the "wallet balance" links. Monero wallet balances are private by design.

The server is paid for until the end of January 2021 .





How to donate



Cryptocurrencies and paysafecards are the only official option that we can offer for now. Please DO NOT send us PMs about accepting payment methods that are not anonymous for recipients. You can donate to the wallet addresses listed below. If the currency you would like to donate in is not listed, please consider using an exchange service like CoinSwitch [[Please login to see this link.]] (no account required) and enter one of our addresses as recipient. If you really cannot convert your currency for whatever reason, contact us.



To qualify for the Donors group, the value of the donation as received by us should be the equivalent of at least 5 EUR at the time of transaction. Due to various fees in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, it's probably safer to donate at least 10 EUR .

After your donation, if you'd like to be added, send us a transaction hash, the exact amount, a link to a blockchain explorer or similar via private message or by posting in this thread. Eligible users will be added to the group, unless they explicitly request not to be added.



Bitcoin (BTC) balance for donation address [[Please login to see this link.]] / balances of our other addresses: #1 [[Please login to see this link.]] #2 [[Please login to see this link.]]

Code: Select all | Line number On/Off | Expand/Contract bc1q2a2tvcxl0rjgfwawkfx4e2j55hqhqnr9x3p3w9



QR Code Attachment: bitcoin_qr.png

Monero (XMR) wallet balances are private by design

Code: Select all | Line number On/Off | Expand/Contract 47BqZMzKzG9ax3s42Y3J8LMwxRq7b6b19EAjLXoqqpYki7NVHEf8NmyCx9tMju3kev7q5wv5PYL5VNHJzjiSqMLRNsts17Z

QR Code Attachment: monero_qr.png

[[Please login to see this link.]] not a cryptocurrency, so no wallet address

Paysafecards can be bought online and in local stores. They contain a code that you can send to a staff member via private message. Please note that unlike with most cryptocurrencies, there will be no verifiable public record of the PSC codes we received or spent, for the time being. However, codes will not be redeemed until we decide to use the funds, which we will report publicly, as explained above. If we are unable to make use of your code for whatever reasons, we will let you know so that you can use it yourself. Be aware of the following restrictions: Currently, we cannot accept cards with a balance below 10 EUR and above 40 EUR, cards that require a myPaysafecard account to be redeemed (which is due to local regulations against anonymous payments) or cards with balances in CHF.



How to buy cryptocurrency The easiest cryptocurrency to buy is Bitcoin. The official Getting started with Bitcoin [[Please login to see this link.]] page walks you through the basics, including choosing a wallet software and finding a way to buy BTC that suits your preferences.

Some tips: The Bitcoin network, as well as most places to purchase Bitcoin, will take transaction fees. Make sure to take this into account when deciding on how much you want to buy. Most crypto exchanges require identity verification, which can take several weeks to complete. Alternatively, you can try finding a Bitcoin ATM near you or buy from private people directly. The linked site has more information on this.



Below are further resources on how to buy cryptocurrency and other useful links:

CoinSwitch [[Please login to see this link.]]

Shapeshift [[Please login to see this link.]]

Rahakott - Anonymous Multi-Cryptocurrency Online Wallet and Mixer [[Please login to see this link.]]

Atomic Multi-Wallet with integrated exchange ($50 minimum when buying with fiat money) [[Please login to see this link.]]

Localbitcoins P2P marketplace [[Please login to see this link.]]

bisq decentralized P2P exchange (advanced) [[Please login to see this link.]]



Tutorials found on Fitgirl's donation page (thanks!):

Tutorial on buying Bitcoin with PayPal [[Please login to see this link.]]

With credit card on Indacoin.com (Video) [[Please login to see this link.]]

[[Please login to see this link.]]

Coinbase (Video) [[Please login to see this link.]]

With credit card on CoinSwitch [[Please login to see this link.]]



Common questions This site is all about free games, do you really expect your users to give you money? You're just trying to make a profit!

We have no expectations, we know that most people who pirate video games might not have much money to spare. We don't either. We just don't see any other way to keep this place alive. Sharing is one thing, trying to profit from other people's works is brazen and shameful. All we care about is preserving this unique site. If you don't trust us, don't donate.

Why don't you try to earn money from advertisements instead?

Even if there was a legitimate ad network that would be fine with warez content, would not resort to unethical or pornographic ads and would not overly track visitors (there isn't), ad revenue would be very unlikely to cover any significant part of the costs. The RIN owner placed ads for a while many years ago, but they were intrusive and didn't seem to generate any meaningful income. Also, we hate ads.

Do I get anything for donating?

First and foremost, you'll get the amazing feeling of knowing that you directly contributed to the continued existence of this forum, as well as our sincere thanks. Aside from that, verified donors can be added to a special Donors usergroup with rank "Donor <3" and possibly more perks in the future. You can choose not to be added to this group, if you do not wish to be associated with your donation. It goes without saying that the forum rules still apply to donors.

Very few people own cryptocurrency, why is there no better or more accessible way to donate?

For safety reasons, we can only accept donations via means that allow the recipient to remain anonymous (and preferably, the sender at least pseudonymous) and that can be converted to cryptocurrency. We would be glad for any trusted volunteers to collect donations via other methods (PayPal, Steam Gift Cards etc.) and convert to cryptocurrencies for us. Please contact us if you are a well-known member and able to do this.

How can I donate via PayPal/credit card?

Find someone who owns cryptocurrency and who is willing to accept PayPal/whatever and then donate the cryptocurrency to us on your behalf. It might be worth considering to find ways to exchange Steam gift keys or other gift codes for cryptocurrency.

I don't have any money, is there another way to help?

You could try mining cryptocurrency, but this typically does not yield significant amounts nowadays and will increase your electricity bill. That said, every little bit helps.

Why don't you add an opt-in webmining script to the forum and/or provide a mining pool I can join?

In our opinion and from experiences of other site operators, the returns from mining nowadays don't warrant the effort required to implement such a system in a secure way. Direct donations have been very successful so far and mining would not improve on this in any significant way. If you'd like to mine for us, feel free to set up your own solutions for that.

Around May 2019 , we moved to a new server so that the RIN owner could continue to afford hosting us and for various technical improvements. In April 2020, we learned that he could no longer afford to renew our server's subscription. Unfortunately, this was bound to happen sooner or later. From our observations, the traffic and therefore the advertisement revenue of RIN (the site network) has been in steady decline for the past ten years - except for us. In contrast, this forum has seen superlinear growth in recent years, but we are ad-free. In 2007, the network was comprised of around 20 servers. Ten years later, it was down to three.Due to our performance and security requirements, it is not possible to host this forum at just any provider or on anything less than a full dedicated server. In fact, our previous dedicated server that was rented on a tight budget was running past its limits and significant efforts were put in to make it work. Funded by the community, we moved to a new server at the beginning of May 2020.This community was incredibly lucky to be sponsored by the RIN owner for all of its 17 years of existence so far, which is a staggering amount of time in terms of internet history.We, the staff, have put great thought into figuring out how to keep this forum online. Sadly, we have determined that we will not be able to finance the kind of hosting this forum requires by ourselves, even with the crappiest, bare-minimum server we could find. This means that since June 2020,This is a significant announcement and we don't want to have ask this, but we see no other way. We want to make very clear thatand we will make this fact as transparent as possible. This means that all donations will remain in the publicly viewable wallets (see section "How to donate" further below) and all paysafecard codes will remain unredeemed until the funds are actually needed. Whenever funds are used, we will make a detailed post on conversion rates and what the resulting amounts are used for. There will be a reasonable trade-off between transparency and protecting everyone's privacy.The cs.rin.ru domain will continue to be free for us. The server costsYou can see the balance of all wallets listed below by clicking on the "wallet balance" links. Monero wallet balances are private by design.The server is paid for until the end ofCryptocurrencies and paysafecards are the only official option that we can offer for now.You can donate to the wallet addresses listed below. If the currency you would like to donate in is not listed, please consider using an exchange service like(no account required) and enter one of our addresses as recipient. If you really cannot convert your currency for whatever reason, contact us.To qualify for thegroup, the value of the donation as received by us should be the equivalent ofat the time of transaction. Due to various fees in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, it's probably safer to donate



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I am no longer active regularly; expect delays in responses to your private messages.For questions and feedback regarding forum policy and rules and for donations , please contact a moderator Before you send us account data removal requests, read the privacy policy _________________



