BitTorrent to launch own cryptocurrency “BTT”

BitTorrent, the world’s largest peer-to-peer file sharing protocol acquired by TRON last year, is working on its own cryptocurrency, CoinDesk reported.

Called “BitTorrent Token” or BTT, the new token will be issued by the BitTorrent Foundation and run on the tron protocol, developed by TRON.

With BitTorrent reportedly having over 100 million users, TRON founder and BitTorrent CEO Justin Sun said that they would be able to “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.”

The plan to create a custom token was initially announced last year, when TRON unveiled details about Project Atlas – a project aimed at connecting BitTorrent’s users to the TRON blockchain and incentivizing them with crypto tokens. It had said at the time:

“Using a set of BitTorrent protocol extensions, a custom token, and an in-client token economy, the company aims to make the BitTorrent protocol faster and better for hundreds of millions of users.”

Users will be able to use the BTT token to pay someone for sending over a file, as well as for more bandwidth to facilitate faster downloads. The token will act as an incentive to file hosts to “keep more files keep more files available to the network,” CoinDesk explained.

Referring to the token’s whitepaper, the news outlet said that BTT will be a TRC-10 token with a total supply of 990 billion. It will be available to non-U.S. accounts via Binance Launchpad and will also be distributed through airdrops, which Sun will announce on Twitter.

BTT will initially work through the Windows-based µTorrent Classic client. Importantly, the company said that Project Atlas will be “backward-compatible,” meaning that users who do not want to spend or earn BTT would still be able to share files with those who opt for the token-based system.