What is BitTorrent?

BitTorrent (BTT) is the main crypto token of the BitTorrent Chain, which runs on a heterogenous cross-chain interoperability protocol. It is the native blockchain of the popular peer-to-peer file exchange platform BitTorrent, and works with multiple public blockchains like Ethereum, Tron, and BNB Chain. The BTT token serves as this blockchain’s native token and is one of the two crypto tokens offered by BitTorrent; the other token is BTTOLD.

Before venturing into blockchain, BitTorrent was known as one of the world’s biggest distributed networks for peer-to-peer file-sharing, with more than two billion users and 100 million monthly average users.

A brief history of BitTorrent

Bram Cohen designed the BitTorrent protocol in April 2001, first releasing it in July 2001. The service became popular as a common solution for transferring large files, accounting for a substantial amount of Internet traffic (2.46% of downstream traffic and 27.58% of upstream traffic) as of 2019.

In July 2018, blockchain platform TRON, led by founder Justin Sun, bought BitTorrent for US$140 million in cash, making Sun the current owner of the file-sharing service. After the TRON acquisition, BitTorrent launched various new tools, including the cryptocurrency token BTT through an initial coin offering (ICO) in January 2019 ($0.00012 per token). The sale distributed 6% of the entire BTT supply for the equivalent of around US$7.2 million.

The original version of BTT was created on the TRON blockchain as a TRC10 token, and this token is mainly used to incentivise the use of BitTorrent Speed, which offers downloaders the chance to pay BTT in exchange for faster download speeds. This compensation method also rewards uploaders with BTT for seeding files for longer periods of time and devoting more of their bandwidth and storage to torrent clients in the network.

In December 2021, BitTorrent launched its native blockchain BitTorrent Chain. As part of this launch, the BitTorrent team implemented a redenomination plan, through which users trade their old BTT tokens on the TRON network in exchange for new BTT tokens on BitTorrent Chain at a 1:1000 ratio. This increased the total supply of BTT tokens from the original 990 billion to 990 trillion. The new BTT tokens retain the BTT name, while the legacy BTT tokens have been renamed into BTTOLD.

How BitTorrent (BTT) works

BitTorrent is, at its heart, software that links people to its network in order to calculate file-sharing requests. Transactions begin when a user requests files from providers who store the files on their machine. Providers who host files divide them into sections. If requesters want to download the file, they will receive fragments of it from several providers. BitTorrent’s extension with BTT was designed to make it a more dispersed network, compensating providers while enhancing the efficiency of distributing huge files in order to lessen server and network impact. A requester may also exchange BTT tokens for local resources, such as bandwidth to receive content or storage for remote backup.

The launch of BitTorrent Chain addressed problems with use cases of the legacy TRON-based BTT tokens, including limitations brought along by the relatively low total token supply. BitTorrent Chain facilitates up to 7,000 transactions per second (TPS), with an average transaction fee of less than $0.01 and a three-second confirmation time. BitTorrent Chain also supports interoperability with Ethereum, TRON, and BNB Chain networks, making it possible for BTT’s native blockchain to bridge with DeFi services from the three networks.

While BitTorrent Chain is the main blockchain for BitTorrent, the platform still uses TRON's smart contracts for services like the BitTorrent File System (BTFS) file storage protocol. BTFS, which accepts BTTOLD tokens, functions similarly to other decentralised cloud storage solutions.

What is BitTorrent (BTT) used for?

The BitTorrent team claims that its chain diversifies the BitTorrent ecosystem with expanded use cases. In effect, payments on BitTorrent Speed and many other parts of the ecosystem are now made using the BTT tokens, facilitated through the project’s blockchain.

During the launch of BitTorrent Chain, its team also said that BTT token users can become validators on the BitTorrent Chain network. They can also stake the tokens to gain rewards, participate in community governance, and pay for gas fees on DApps that use the blockchain. Third-party apps like DeBank and Gnosis Safe are also compatible with BitTorrent Chain, adding new use cases to BTT.