Researchers have proposed horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum) as the most likely source for SARS-CoV-2 as it shares 96% of its genetic material with a known coronavirus harboured in these bats. In several media it was suggested that the coronavirus pandemic was caused by the eating of bats. I don't see people eat raw bats so I have a more probable story.
In traditional Chinese medicine horseshoe bat faeces (Ye Ming Sha) are used to cure night blindness, swelling and pain in the eyes, infantile malnutrition, scrofula, and malaria (https://tcmwiki.com/wiki/ye-ming-sha).
A 100 gram bag of Ye Ming Sha can be bought online for USD 12,38 (https://www.bestplant.shop/products/ye-ming-sha-bat-feces-bat-dung-bat-guano). The coronavirus has been traced back to the Huanan seafoods wholesale market in Wuhan. Because the trading of bats and of bat faeces obviously is a profitable business that probably also took place there. It is probably not a coincidence that the person who gave the first warnings was an eye doctor. Li Wenliang, the Chinese eye doctor who was one of the first to warn for this new virus, got infected himself while treating a merchant from the Huanan market and a month later he died.
The dried Ye Ming Sha is relatively harmless but I assume that there are Chinese quacks who say that it is even better to use fresh faeces. The usage of bat faeces as an eye medicine could be highly risky in case an animal was infected with a coronavirus as the virus can be present in faeces and can enter a host via the eye. It is very likely that bat‐derived materials sold for traditional Chinese medicine practices have been involved in this outbreak.
Sources:
https://cmjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13020-019-0253-x/tables/1
https://sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/lam.13285