BitTorrent (BTT) is the native token of the world's largest file sharing protocol that recently completed a much touted ICO earlier this year.
All of the publicity surrounding the ICO was because the Binance Launchpad, a newly launched funding portal, had completed the first ever raise. Justin Sun from Tron’s (TRX) cryptocurrency owned BitTorrent, which was used to promote the ICO.
Does BTT have a real future? Will the hype fade away and die out?
This BitTorrent review will go beyond the hype and look at the technology behind it, the roadmap, and the use cases. Also, we will look at BTT’s price potential and its prospects for large-scale adoption.
BitTorrent ICO
BitTorrent has been estimated to be the largest protocol for file sharing in the world. Some estimates claim that BitTorrent accounts for over 20% of all internet traffic. It was therefore a big deal when Justin Sun, the CEO of Tron, bought the site for $140,000,000. It was also huge when Tron released a TRC-10 BitTorrent token with BTT as the ticker.
This token sale on Binance’s Launchpad platform ended less than 15 seconds later, with BitTorrent receiving $7.2 Million. That was after an initial private sale for $20 million. It is clear that this was one of the best public token sales over the last year, as the cryptocurrency bear market has affected new coins.
It was evident that there were so many people interested in the BTT token during the public sale, the site could not handle the amount of traffic. Several investors couldn’t access the site or the sale.
We would say that so far, it has been a success, but Justin Sun from Tron continues to promote BitTorrent, and BTT. On February 11, Justin Sun is promoting the biggest and longest airdrops in history. This began with block height 6,600,000. Each TRX holder will get 0.1097681177 BTT.
BTT has retreated from its all-time highest price of $0.001250, reached on February 5th. It is now trading at $0.000847. The $0.00012 ICO was a huge increase, and investors have seen a 7x gain in less than 2 weeks.
After you’ve read the background story on the ICO let’s look deeper at BTT. BitTorrent and potential uses of the BTT token. We’ll also look at the negatives as well as positives in order to have a complete picture.
What is BTT Token?
BTT is the TRC-10 token that was created by Tron. It was designed to be an improvement to the BitTorrent protocol which launched in 2001 and purchased by Tron Foundation.
Tron and BitTorrent are both good matches, BitTorrent representing one of first ever decentralized networks in the history of internet. BitTorrent, which has over 100,000,000 monthly users, is one of the largest networks. BTT has a huge reach from the very beginning.
In the BitTorrent whitepaper, the first suggested use is for improving the efficiency of sharing files. BitTorrent file-sharing involves seeds and peers. The seeds are the users that share a complete copy of the requested file.
Tron is convinced that BTT will make the process better.
The BitTorrent speed feature
BitTorrent Speed is one of the initial features which will be discussed. The feature is set to go live in the second half of 2019. It will increase BTT adoption.
BitTorrent Speed was designed as a way to encourage financial incentive on the BitTorrent Network. The BTT will allow peers to pay in BTT in order to improve their download position and accelerate the process. Seeds will also benefit from these payments as they are the ones who receive them, and so be more willing to leave their files on seeding sites for longer.
BitTorrent Speed’s developers believe that such an incentive helps optimize network and computer resources. The bidding system will initially be simple and automated, but later, it is expected to include more features and improvements.
The BTT Whitepaper: BitTorrent Speed
The system will allow users to trade BTT to continue to receive priority access to seed. It is intended that peer participants will seed longer in order to improve swarm durability and download speed for everyone.
BTT can be used in other ways
BTT will also be used in other ways to enhance and expand the BitTorrent Ecosystem. These features allow BitTorrent to share small parts of its infrastructure to create value.
Initial suggestions have suggested three decentralized services or features:
1. Users can advertise bids on the system and pay BTT in order to get content more quickly.
2. Storage platform that allows users to pay extra for storage space or be paid for offering storage.
3. The service allows users who have unreliable Internet connectivity to pay for a client in order to fetch content using URL.
In the future, the BitTorrent Protocol will be opened-sourced so that third-party developers can easily develop new applications and services on the BitTorrent platform. These apps must meet the needs of the users. The BTT will be given to developers as a reward for their work.
It seems that the visions of many blockchain projects are similar. It is about creating an eco-system where micropayments power the entire system and ecosystem grows organically with user engagement. Building an economic system of this kind has proved difficult. But no project had the platform size and popularity that BitTorrent has.
BitTorrent Community
When it comes to mass acceptance, the community’s interest in a particular cryptocurrency can be a major factor. This enthusiasm is what helps spread awareness of BitTorrent and, hopefully, encourages potential seeders.
Due to the previous popularity of BitTorrent they have already a fairly large following on social networks. They have, for example, over 70k subscribers to their Telegram channel. The company has over 53,000 Twitter followers and close to 650,000 Facebook fans.
The numbers are impressive.
Even excluding the influence that the Tron Community can have on driving the project ahead. Since TRX holders are also likely to get BTT via airdrop, they will be more inclined to get involved with the BitTorrent eco-system. Tron enthusiasts are known for their passion when discussing the Tron eco-system.
Roadmap and Development
Looking at the GitHub repository is one of the best ways to gauge the amount of work being done. It is possible to get a rough idea about the number of lines of code that are being added.
The BitTorrent protocol currently has 117 repositories that are public. However, all of the BTT token repositories have been developed in secret. Although this is unfortunate news, it’s likely that the BTT token repository has a reason for being private.
The BitTorrent team released a roadmap that outlines what they will be doing in the coming year. The team hopes to have completed the following by the end of the first quarter of 2019.
- Complete off-chain and on-chain exchange development
- Comprehensive swarm Analysis Framework
- TRC-10 BTT Tokens
The team hopes to reach the following milestones in the first and second quarters of 2019.
- Launch complete Wallet User Interface in their stable Client
- Expose wallet to early access groups with the on-chain/offchain exchange
- Post BEPs relating to BTT, tokenization and the BitTorrent protocol
- Add TRX wallet support, as well as any TRC-10 tokens or TRC-20 Tokens.
- Try integrating dApps into your network
The developers have ambitious goals and it will certainly be exciting to see how they achieve these. We are now halfway through the quarter so we will find out if the developer’s are able to reach their targets. To date, the Tron developers and BitTorrent have met their goals on time.
Buying & Storing BTT
If you missed the BTT Crowdsale, and aren’t due to get them through the Airdrop, you can still buy them at an open exchange. BTT is a star product and has been available for a while on many exchanges.
BTT currently is traded at two major exchanges. Binance is one of them, as well as UpBit. It is the Binance exchange that is used for trading BNB tokens, USDT or BTC in relation to BTT. The UpBit is the Korean exchange where KRW is traded.
BTT is traded on Huobi Global, Bittrex and other exchanges. However, the volume is significantly less on Binance. It is impressive that a token which has recently completed an ICO can have a daily volume of close to $87,000. It does not mean they aren’t volatile, and traders should be careful when dealing with them.
You can choose any Tron wallet with TRC-10 support if you already own BTT tokens. Tron Wallet as well as Trust Wallet both confirm that they are ready to support BTT and be prepared for the airdrop.
BitTorrent (BTT), a cause for concern
BTT’s success is uncertain, despite the fact that BitTorrent as a protocol and platform has been extremely popular for nearly 20 years. The need for blockchain technology in BitTorrent as well as choosing the Tron Network as the blockchain have all been questioned.
A former BitTorrent executive who quit after Tron acquired BitTorrent and claimed that the Tron Blockchain is nothing but a clone of BitTorrent is one source for these doubts. " a marketing machine layered on a very thin veneer of technology." He continued to state that the TRX Blockchain could not handle the amount of BitTorrent transactions.
The community has speculated that Tron’s pumping of BTT is all it was, and nothing else. Many community members doubt that the BTT has any practical or real utility, saying BitTorrent users won’t pay for faster downloads.
There have also been concerns about the legality in monetizing copyrighted materials, as this would be considered piracy by U.S. law and many other countries.
You can also read our conclusion.
BitTorrent, one of first ever decentralized networks to exist on the Internet, has over 100 million users each month. Tron now controls the BitTorrent protocol, and it is working to integrate blockchain technology into the ecosystem. This will create a sustainable economic model that encourages users to download and share content.
It is an ambitious plan, but there is some doubt about its necessity, as well as the legality in encouraging the download and sharing of content that is protected by copyright.
The rapid increase in BTT tokens has been met with skepticism. Many claim the rise is nothing but Justin Sun hype. Once he stops selling the coins, the value will fall.
Some people think that the decision to put this file-sharing platform on the blockchain is brilliant and is a great start for the industry.
It’s important to know the price of BTT has increased seven times in just two short weeks. Know that even though this project is promising, there will still be several months before the most basic incentives are added to BitTorrent. Also, investing now could give you an early entry into this exciting project, but is also extremely risky due to the many questions surrounding this entire BTT Project.