BitTorrent unveils a new native cryptocurrency token (BTT) to enable users to pay for faster downloads

In August 2018, BitTorrent, the world’s largest decentralized P2P protocol and the largest player in decentralized computing architecture, was sold to Justin Sun and his blockchain media startup TRON, for $140 million in cash. Now the BitTorrent is adding a cryptocurrency token to uTorrent. Yesterday, BitTorrent CEO and TRON founder Justin Sun, announced a new token, also called BitTorrent (BTT), that will payments for faster downloads.

The new token, which has native TRC-10 compatibility, will be issued by BitTorrent Foundation, established in Singapore and will enable users to exchange tokens to improve network speed. The token will be exclusively available to non-U.S. accounts on Binance Launchpad, the token sale platform by leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance. BTT is based on the TRON blockchain to foster faster downloads, file availability and content creation on the world’s largest decentralized application.

Founded with a leading peer-to-peer sharing technology standard in 2004, BitTorrent, Inc. is a consumer software company based in San Francisco. Its protocol is the largest decentralized P2P network in the world, driving 22% of upstream and 3% of downstream traffic globally. Its flagship desktop and mobile products, BitTorrent and µTorrent, enable users to send large files over the internet, connecting legitimate third-party content providers with users. With over 100 million active users, BitTorrent products have been installed on over 1 billion devices in over 138 countries worldwide.

By providing users with the ability to use BTT tokens for faster downloads, the company aims to accelerate the overall speed of torrents. “BitTorrent token is the first in a series of steps to support a decentralized internet,” said Justin Sun, founder of TRON and CEO of BitTorrent. “In one giant leap, the BitTorrent client can introduce blockchain to hundreds of millions of users around the world and empower a new generation of content creators with the tools to distribute their content directly to others on the web.”

“We created Launchpad to help entrepreneurs launch their best projects and bring more use cases to the industry,” said Changpeng Zhao (‘CZ’), Binance CEO and Founder. “BitTorrent is a decentralized project by nature, with a large user base, that is now adding a new token economy to their use case. Through Launchpad, BitTorrent will have greater access to resources across the Binance ecosystem. This will be a case study for existing projects.”

Launchpad helps transformative blockchain startups raise funds needed to develop their products and provides them with Binance’s advisory resources and access to its ecosystem as part of the company’s larger mission in aiding cryptocurrency adoption.

BitTorrent token will first be implemented into the Windows-based µTorrent Classic client, BitTorrent, Inc.’s most popular application. BitTorrent token-enabled µTorrent Classic clients will be 100% compatible with other clients that support the BitTorrent protocol, and users who wish to opt out will be able to do so in the product’s settings. More information about the token mechanism can be found on the official white papers.

Founded in September 2017 by Justin Sun, TRON is dedicated to creating a boundary-free internet that inspires innovation across industries. TRON and its subsidiary BitTorrent give users direct access to applications, content and media by combining best-in-class blockchain approaches with innovations in peer-to-peer sharing and other technologies. The TRON Protocol, one of the largest blockchain-based operating systems in the world, offers public blockchain support of high throughput, high scalability, and high availability for all Decentralized Applications (DApps) in the TRON ecosystem, with average daily transactions of more than 3 million. The July 2018 acquisition of BitTorrent further cemented TRON’s leadership in pursuing a decentralized ecosystem

TRON and BitTorrent plan to provide more details about BitTorrent token and Project Atlas products at niTROn Summit on January 17-18 in San Francisco.