The Blockchain Bay:

The Blockchainbay is a torrent distribution tool hosted on a EVM-compatible blockchain. This is a tool similar to Pirate Bay, but using a EVM-compatible blockchain (Ethereum, polygon, BSC, etc.) as a database.

Doesn't require any funds to search and download torrents, only to upload a new torrent (As write operations modify the database).

Installation:

The easiest way is to use pip in this way:

pip install blockchainbay

Optionally, install transmission-cli to download magnet torrents:

sudo apt install transmission-cli

Or the equivalent in your OS (transmission-cli need to be in the path). This executable can be configured in the config.ini file.

The Blockchainbay tool by default only reads from the blockchain and this operation don't require any balance in the account, so it can be empty. You don't need to setup any account as one is provided by default.

Those instructions are for using the polygon network with the Ankr gateway, but you can use any network (Ethereum, optimism, etc.) with any web3 gateway, like Infura. By default, Blockchain bay uses a contract deployed in the Polygon network, and uses the Ankr web3 gateway.

Searching torrents

Execute the command-line tool:

$ blockChainBay.py

At start, the utility will sync with the database on the blockchain, downloading all torrents locally (this can take some minute). It's much faster to search in a local database, however you can also search for torrents remotely using the /remote command.

Issuing /help will show you the available commands:

Web interface

Starting with 1.5.0, you can use a web interface by using the --web argument:

$ blockChainBay.py --web
...
[I] Starting web Server...
http://localhost:8888/

Then you can point your browser to http://localhost:8888 and access the web interface, similar to the one at the original ThePirateBay.org site:

Demo video:

Commands

Available commands:
      /quit          :Exit to shell
      /getid <n>     :Show the torrent n in the remote database
      /remote <str>  :Search for <str> in the remote database
      /sync          :Downloads all torrents to the cache file
      /link <n>      :Obtain link from search result
      /download <n>  :Launch bittorrent client on search result
      /vote <n>      :Vote torrent up (Warning: consumes balance from account)
      /benchmark     :Perform simple query benchmark
      /help          :Print help
      <string>       :Search for string in the local torrent cache

To search for a torrent, just enter a substring:

Enter search term: book
[1]: The Samurai Sword A Handbook size:9711356 bytes seeders:1 leechers:0

To display the magent link, use the /link command:

Enter search term: /link 1


The Samurai Sword A Handbook size:9711356 bytes seeders:1 leechers:0


magnet:?xt=urn:btih:000329661633b3a4f5cb82dc6aed6aca350b9602&dn=The%20Samurai%20Sword%20A%20Handbook&tr=udp://tracker.coppersurfer.tk:6969/announce&tr=udp://tracker.open-internet.nl:6969/announce&tr=udp://tracker.leechers-paradise.org:6969/announce&tr=udp://tracker.internetwarriors.net:1337/announce&tr=udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce&tr=udp://9.rarbg.to:2710/announce&tr=udp://9.rarbg.me:2710/announce&tr=http://tracker3.itzmx.com:6961/announce&tr=http://tracker1.itzmx.com:8080/announce&tr=udp://exodus.desync.com:6969/announce&tr=udp://explodie.org:6969/announce&tr=udp://ipv4.tracker.harry.lu:80/announce&tr=udp://denis.stalker.upeer.me:6969/announce&tr=udp://tracker.torrent.eu.org:451/announce&tr=udp://tracker.tiny-vps.com:6969/announce&tr=udp://thetracker.org:80/announce&tr=udp://open.demonii.si:1337/announce&tr=udp://tracker4.itzmx.com:2710/announce&tr=udp://tracker.cyberia.is:6969/announce&tr=udp://retracker.netbynet.ru:2710/announce

If you have the transmission-cli bittorrent client installed, you can directly download the torrent using:

/download 1

Uploading torrents

You need to configure an account in blockChainBay, but with funds on it (just to pay for the transactions, no money goes to any person or entity). Never put more funds than strictly necessary. For example, at this date (July 2022) uploading 1000 torrents consumes about 5 matic in the Polygon network. This is about 2 USD for every 1000 torrents uploaded. Other networks like Ethereum might be hundreds of times more expensive.

Then you need a file in this format:

2dd9e39e18a6409c6344e30ffb2f38ea12b9f69b;ubuntu-9.10-server-i386.iso;671686656;1256817840;1;0;1;1651169962
2ddb7840d75aac5330a2d1e902d2569f716726ea;Python Crash Course, 2nd Edition;6282986;1564965900;31;0;253;1651169962

Fields are ';' separated as following:

#infohash;name;size_bytes;created_unix;seeders;leechers;completed;scraped_date

You can assign any value to the seeders and leechers fields, as they are only a copy of the torrent values when scrapped. Note: This is the file format used in the torrents.txt file from https://gitea.com/heretic/torrents-csv-server Once you have written your torrents in a file name I.E. 'torrentuploads.txt', execute:

./blockChainBay.py --upload torrentuploads.txt

And if correctly configured, the tool should start uploading your torrents to the smartcontract database specified in config.ini.

Custom smart-contract

You can compile and deploy your own smart-contract database, for this, issue this command from the root dir:

You will need the eth-brownie framework installed, using pip3, or pipx:

pip3 install eth-brownie

To compile the smart contract:

brownie compile

And to deploy the smart contract, modify your account info editiny deploy.py and run it:

brownie run scripts/deploy.py

Deploying a smart contract will require funds in your account. The price will depend on the blockchain that you configured.

Once your smartcontract is deployed, you must copy his address to the config.ini configuration, and blockchainbay will start using your custom smart contract.