BitTorrent has been acquired by creator of Tron cryptocurrencies
Entrepreneur Justin Sun, who is behind the crypto currency Tron, has taken over the company BitTorrent and with it µTorrent with his Tron Foundation. BitTorrent previously announced that Sun was interested in the company of the underlying protocol.
Both companies have given little information about the acquisition, it is unclear how much Sun paid for BitTorrent. Earlier it was clear that Sun was interested in the acquisition of BitTorrent; it is said that an amount of 140 million dollars was paid for it. Converted, that equates to approximately 120 million euros.
According to the official statement, BitTorrent will continue to operate from Tron’s new location in San Francisco. BitTorrent reports that it will provide “robust support” to Tron’s global business developments and partnerships, while also continuing its “vision for the largest global decentralized ecosystem.”
Sun says that with the integration of BitTorrent, he wants to “liberate the Internet from the stranglehold of large companies.” With the acquisition, he also wants to return data rights to the individual and breathe new life into a vision of a free, transparent, decentralized network to connect the world.
In any case, Sun probably also acquired BitTorrent for the further development of BitSwap. This is part of the p2p network layer that is based on BitTorrent. According to a white paper, Tron consists of different layers: on top is the layer of applications that users run and below that is the blockchain part. Below that is the p2p data layer and a network layer. How exactly the technology behind the BitTorrent protocol will integrate with that of Tron is unclear.
Justin Sun is the creator of the increasingly popular Tron platform. With this platform, the Tron Foundation focuses on the distribution of entertainment and a decentralized network for the associated data. BitTorrent is the company behind the protocol of the same name that was created in 2001. The creator of this is Bram Cohen; he is now the CEO of Chia, a cryptocurrency platform. While BitTorrent has monetized bundling software and advertisements in its µTorrent client, its own plans to emerge as a commercial audio and video distribution network never materialized.