16 ms·

BitTorrent is selling for $140M to Justin Sun and Tron

251 points by mikece 8y ago

Adamantcheese 8y ago
Who uses BitTorrent anymore? There's a swath of other torrent clients out there that are superior to it.
- samueldavid 8y ago
  uTorrent FTW
  - spacewrangler 8y ago
    qBittorrent is much better
    - tmikaeld 8y ago
      Transmission is betterst
      - saagarjha 8y ago
        Transmission is great but they lost a lot of trust when they started distributing malware from their website.
        cremp 8y ago
        And twice at that.
        ambicapter 8y ago
        link? Because the only time I can think of is when their website got hacked and the developers sent out notice as soon as they found out.
        saagarjha 8y ago
        That’s it. As a sibling comment mentioned, I did not phrase that well.
        ballenf 8y ago
        That's a very disingenuous phrasing. They were hacked. Maybe (probably) due to bad security practices, but they didn't intentionally distribute malware.
        saagarjha 8y ago
        You’re right. I’d edit my comment, but it looks like I can’t anymore.
      - Uberphallus 8y ago
        rTorrent + tmux is my poison
      - amyjess 8y ago
        I used to use Transmission, but I gave up on it because of UI/settings issues. I've since switched to KTorrent.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - squarefoot 8y ago
      Though I use Transmission on my NAS4Free box, which I control remotely through the excellent transgui program (https://github.com/transmission-remote-gui/transgui https://github.com/transmission-remote-gui/transgui) I also install qBittorrent to all Windows/Linux users asking for a client for it being very stable and consistent among platforms, the latter very important for newbies, but I see now they're porting Transmission to Windows as well. Good! I don't consider closed source clients for security reasons, or bloated ones (Vuze etc.) because I'd rather use a spare GB of RAM to make a filesystem more snappy than to load a Java environment that eats alone half the resources of a small server.
    - slfnflctd 8y ago
      Last I heard, Deluge was the preferred minimalist client. I've never noticed much difference between the ones I've tried other than that some have ads. Performance seems to be pretty much the same across the board.
      - Latty 8y ago
        I wouldn't called Deluge minimalist - that's Transmission. Deluge is more of a power-tool, albeit one most people can use happily. The big thing that I like is that you can use the desktop GUI (GTK) client with a remote daemon doing the actual downloading. Plenty of them have web-clients (Deluge does as well), but it's nice using the proper GUI. Other than that, it has all of the usual tools you'd want from a client.
    - NVRM 8y ago
      qBittorrent is much better
  - sp332 8y ago
    Doesn't uTorrent have ads? I use deluge because I like having a headless back-end part.
  - shp0ngle 8y ago
    uTorrent is owned by BitTorrent company
    - XalvinX 8y ago
      uTorrent is pure ad-filled garbage since they bought it...nearly impossible to use from all the popups and shit. at one time it was the only thing anyone used but i seriously doubt anyone bothers with it anymore.
  - wnevets 8y ago
    utorrent went to trash the moment bittorrent bought it. I still use the version before that.
- serg_chernata 8y ago
  I really liked it, but walked away since the "mining client" controversy. Has anything changed since?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- white-flame 8y ago
  BitTorrent The Company isn't focused around their p2p client. They've been trying to become some form of media publisher for a long time now, but haven't had any particular big hits there. At this point, I think the name recognition is the fundamental asset they have as a company.
  - XalvinX 8y ago
    Exactly...they have nothing to speak of, but a lot they like to talk about. Cohen got real lucky here and if he is as smart as he is supposed to be, he will stash away a couple million of that for a rainy day. History is littered with inventors who ended up broke.
- darkstar999 8y ago
  BitTorrent the company is a lot more than a bittorrent client.
  - XalvinX 8y ago
    Oh? Care to elucidate on that? What do they actually do and how do they make money besides selling a few ads on that client? Serious question I'm sure everyone here would like to know the answer to.
    - asdsa5325 8y ago
      Feel free to read the article > given the company is not only well-versed in the technologies necessary for decentralised, peer-to-peer networking through its software and protocols but also has a foothold in the entertainment industry via BitTorrent Now, helping independent artists and musicians promulgate their work using the same technology used to pirate the latest episodes of your favourite TV shows
    - bhtru 8y ago
      This is their multimedia content focused website: https://now.bt.co/ https://now.bt.co/
- ballenf 8y ago
  Or outsource the hassle and risk and use a paid "online torrent client".
ttul 8y ago
Well, I guess they can stop seeding now.
ccnafr 8y ago
Original report from Variety: https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/bittorrent-acquisition-tron-justin-sun-1202841793/ https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/bittorrent-acquisition...
wyldfire 8y ago
I love cryptocoins, I think tokens are kinda interesting and I've read a bit about some of the token/blockchain/storage offerings. But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Tron/Storj/MaidSafe/LBRY/etc. IMO these services could perhaps be a backend for some user-friendly storage broker. But people just don't like the idea of encrypted data where they're the only ones who have the key. "Who do I call if I forget/lose/destroy my passphrase?"
- pdpi 8y ago
  > But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Tron/Storj/MaidSafe/LBRY/etc. From the outside looking in, that might as well have been "But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Uber/Lyft/Curb". Just different groups trying to build something based on the same idea. Even if the core concepts are similar, it's very much the case, as always, that execution is everything, and each group is invested in making their own solution win in the market.
  - dleslie 8y ago
    > But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Uber/Lyft/Curb I don't, for Uber and Lyft; I've never heard of Curb. As a user, the two don't distinguish themselves in any way that effects my choice. Execution is nothing if it doesn't meaningfully increase adoption.
    - jtbayly 8y ago
      This is the context of "There's already taxis. What does Uber (or Lyft, not opposed to Lyft) offer?" And the answer is obviously something.
      - kbart 8y ago
        Still from the user perspective I see no difference between Uber/Lyft or taxi - I choose the one which is fastest/cheapest on a given circumstances, so not sure what's your point here.
socratesone 8y ago
I wonder if most blatant bs ICO projects are not just clever (pre-regulation) transfers of wealth from retail investors to management. Tron is the quintessential hype > value project, and now they are bolting on actual assets through buying stuff with their war chest. Even better for management, they don't have a fiduciary duty to token holders..
- Bombthecat 8y ago
  That's what I thought too. Really strange time to be alive. People give money away in a scam ( at least tron is in my opinion) and the owner go to buy nice stuff...
  - samsonradu 8y ago
    What scares me even more is how overvalued everything else must be around us. It really can't be that people give money away in such way and other valuations are still sane, there has to be some correlation. I see companies closing in to 1 trillion USD, housing feeling decoupled from reality and the entire crypto market cap even now is ~300bln USD for what mostly is pure speculation. Odd.
    - deltateam 8y ago
      things aren't overvalued if the money supply has been increasing, which it has if more dollar units exist, and the same or less purchasable units exist, then purchasable units have a value in more dollar units the people increasing the money supply had an idea about what other people would spend the additional money on, but economists never predict human behavior accurately. but it doesn't really matter, the primary recipients of the additional supply are their friends.
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        > things aren't overvalued if the money supply has been increasing, which it has If housing prices disconnect and accelerate away from what incomes can support servicing a mortgage, housing is overvalued. If PE ratios start to become wildly unjustified, equities are overvalued. This is regardless of money supply.
rckclmbr 8y ago
as a user of resilio sync should i be concerned?
- wmf 8y ago
  Resilio has been a separate company for two years; they're not affected by this deal.
  - rckclmbr 8y ago
    Good to know, thanks
HelloNurse 8y ago
> creating a potential mining platform for cryptocurrencies. I find calibrating my mistrust of cryptocurrency startups difficult; I cannot tell whether this is a baseless speculation, or an actual betrayal-based business plan, or an attempt to make people share less files by reducing trust in BitTorrent client software.
mihaifm 8y ago
Tron is just an overhyped marketing machine and a massive cash grab. Now they're using the money to buy some real world assets to consolidate their image in the distributed/decentralized world. Their strategy works, what can I say. As far as the product itself, just take a look at their website (https://tron.network/index?lng=en https://tron.network/index?lng=en) under the DApps section, they just list some mockups with dead urls or no additional info...a joke really for a project worth several billions in market cap. Taking a look at their repository (https://github.com/tronprotocol/java-tron https://github.com/tronprotocol/java-tron) there is no sign of a virtual machine that's supposed to run smart contracts, however they do attempt to create some kind of documentation for it (http://wiki.tron.network/en/latest/TRON_Virtual_Machine.html http://wiki.tron.network/en/latest/TRON_Virtual_Machine.html) Seriosly, it's frightening how this project managed to raise so much money from thin air.
- kookiekrak 8y ago
  Tron VM has a beta release out, but it's not a priority currently. They're working on building and stabilizing the blockchain first. Dapp partnerships are coming but you cant have people commit to building on a nonexistant blockchain ;)
  - brokensegue 8y ago
    dapps are a dud. just look at all the dapps eth has
    - mkirklions 8y ago
      I havent tried using them, but what makes them stink? Expensive/Slow?
      - cornholio 8y ago
        Ensuring the integrity of your distributed application by running the same code on every node in the network is a fundamentally bad idea. It only makes sense in zero trust, monetary applications like Bitcoin and Ethereum itself - or speculative tokens built on top of them.
XalvinX 8y ago
BitTorrent does what again? Yeah, I know they claim to have 100-some million users, but that's pretty easy to say. I think the buyers got a bad deal here. I have followed technology for a long time and BitTorrent has managed to get in the headlines once every 2-3 years with some big announcement or the other, all of which have amounted to nothing.. correct me if i'm wrong but i'm pretty sure i'm not. There last big announcement was (surprise, surprise!) another crypto-currency thing to add to the 1600 that are already out. Like that's going to go far...
- black_puppydog 8y ago
  Just to clarify: you're talking about the company here, not the protocol, right? Otherwise I'd know a few peeps who'd disagree... :)
- TheCapn 8y ago
  >There last big announcement was (surprise, surprise!) another crypto-currency thing to add to the 1600 that are already out. Like that's going to go far... Maybe I'm wrong but I thought the last announcement as you claim wasn't anything to do with BitTorrent but instead was about Bram Cohen dipping his fingers into Crypto with Chia. Less as an action of BitTorrent but more of an action as him as an individual. He's no longer with BitTorrent according to the wikipedia page on him
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  It sounds like the Resilio folks made the right call splitting away from BitTorrent the company.
ybrah 8y ago
Lots of recruiters have reached out to me to work for blockchain startups. It's a great marker for which companies to not work for.
VectorLock 8y ago
Looks like BitTorrent finally figured out how to be profitable. :)
lakechfoma 8y ago
Can someone explain what this means for BitTorrent as in the protocol and ecosystem? I did not know that BitTorrent the company even existed or maintained uTorrent until this confusing announcement. I assumed the protocol was an open community thing, but it seems like this company has been trying (unsuccessfully) to become a media empire?
- dbmikus 8y ago
  I would guess this means absolutely nothing for the protocol and ecosystem. Both have been around a long time (in tech years) and I've never noticed any way that BitTorrent the company affected BitTorrent the protocol.
  - strkek 8y ago
    Aren't they basically the ones controlling the protocol specs through the BitTorrent Enhancement Proposals (BEP)? (Honest question.)
    - jzelinskie 8y ago
      Technically they are, but in reality, none of the BEPs matter unless libtorrent implements them. Every modern client links against libtorrent for their torrent logic; when picking a client, you're just selecting what version of libtorrent and UI framework you want. libtorrent is solely maintained by Arvid Norberg who happens to actually work at another blockchain company, Blockstream. If you want to do one thing to support the BitTorrent ecosystem, it's to contribute to libtorrent to reduce the bus factor.
mkirklions 8y ago
This is going to be one of those huge historical moments when idiots/the greedy get screwed and we write about it later. Most tech people I talk to have realized Blockchain is useless outside of applications that require decentralized verification. You wouldnt use blockchain for social media, you wouldnt use blockchain for most download services, you generally wouldnt use blockchain when a centralized server is cheaper and faster. It costs more money to pay multiple people to verify. It costs less money for less people to verify. Not sure the detail I need to go on HN, but the understanding of blockchain on reddit is non-existent. They believe it can and should be used everywhere. This understanding has created uninformed youtube videos and ICOs that promise the moon. Then there seems to be people who work in tech that understand what is useful here, and whats hype. Most techies moved on, sure you own bitcoin because thats a real application of blockchain, but outside of Bitcoin there isnt anything currently useful. Ask a Tron owner about blockchain, that should be enough to show you how misunderstood crypto is, and how the people who own alt coins are going after money rather than tech.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  I agree. There are a few interesting areas, such as how a blockchain scheme might be useful to the Tor network, but it is all hype. I really laugh at those who think blockchain tech can/will replace property registries, real estate agents, and lawyers. I guess these were the same people who thought SecondLife would replace teleconferencing.
  - nisa 8y ago
    In the end you don't need decentralisation for verifying integrity - there is and was a large body of research for verifying integrity of such records like timestamping services.
    - dozzie 8y ago
      Hint: blockchain is a timestamping service. What is new compared to the body of research you speak of is that it doesn't need trusted third party.
rdiddly 8y ago
Is a real life Pied Piper "decentralized" internet even desirable? I kind of like not having a big chunk of the internet on my hard drive and serving it up to other clients.
- _salmon 8y ago
  This idea is real and being developed by IPFS. See: https://ipfs.io/ https://ipfs.io/
- applecrazy 8y ago
  I’m particularly curious about the moral/legal aspects of serving websites run by others on one’s own machine. Who takes responsibility when illegal content is discovered? And how does one make sure that the illegal content is not redistributed? (“Illegal” here is a euphemism for anything considered morally wrong to consume or distribute by most of society)
  - workinthehead 8y ago
    Seriously? Just use the blockchain to find out who uploaded it.
- workinthehead 8y ago
  Could never be erased or censored, never go down, never be taken over by telecoms, yeah it has some desirable properties. If you have high speed internet you are most likely already taking part in an internet sharing scheme already.
  - omarchowdhury 8y ago
    Never be taken down by telecoms seems like quite a stretch, since they can filter the technology every single one of these distributed platforms rely on: TCP/IP. VPNs won't help if every node must broadcast to other nodes for the network to function, and thus giving away their identity of being a participant in whichever network.
deevolution 8y ago
Maybe bittorrent will finally achieve mainstream adoption. More importantly, maybe tron will find a way to eliminate those pesky bittorrent data leacher
nemoniac 8y ago
Please correct the title to say that it's the BitTorrent trade mark that has been sold, not the technology.
- asdsa5325 8y ago
  I don't think you are correct. They bought the company, including all of their products.
  - nemoniac 8y ago
    I don't mean products. The BitTorrent protocol is open. "The BitTorrent specification is free to use and many clients are open source" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent#Implementations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent#Implementations
danvoell 8y ago
I hope the seller was paid in cash.
bondolo 8y ago
The $140M being "alleged" is the most blockchain part of the title
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ve55 8y ago
Reposting an old comment I made about TRON (the cryptocurrency) here: For those that haven't heard of TRON, it is what I would call one of the most successful scams in the history of cryptocurrency. It is a currency that was made on top of Ethereum (thus, it took no actual effort to create, as this can be done instantly and for free), paired with a significant amount of hype and lies to investors. The TRON Whitepaper (what investors are 'supposed' to read and invest off of) is written terribly and copies significantly from other successful projects: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/7oeh92/trons_trx.. https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/7oeh92/trons_trx.... It's possible that the CEO of TRON made at least $300M USD from selling his own coins that he created out of thin air: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/7oh01s/trx_tron_.. https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/7oh01s/trx_tron_.... The CEO tweets in ways specifically designed to entice investors to speculate on his coin, such as specifically telling people it will go up in value: https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/947463313775927297 https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/947463313775927297, or specifically saying the downwards price movement is due to changes to CoinMarketCap information (completely false): https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/951191786902274048 https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/951191786902274048 Some investors in TRON have lost up to 66% of their net worth thus far (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tron/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tron/), making it one of the largest crashes that has been seen in the top 10 coins on CoinMarketCap in quite awhile. Some of the things investors believe are completely absurd, citing that the Chinese government or Amazon will use TRON. It's unfortunate the levels of misinformation that so rampantly spread and cause many to lose their hard-earned money. original: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16148721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16148721
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  I thought Tron was supposed to fight for the Users. :( Also, how have Disney not sued them for the trademark violation yet?
  - ikeboy 8y ago
    Not a trademark violation since they aren't making a movie or using it in that context.
anonytrary 8y ago
This is surprising news! TRON was (is?) a cryptocurrency everyone on Reddit loved to hate, now they're going around buying BitTorrent -- actually useful software? What is to come of this? Are they going to try and attempt to blockchain-ize BitTorrent's protocol, like vTorrent[0]? [0] http://vtorrent.info/ http://vtorrent.info/
alistproducer2 8y ago
I've been a blockchain watcher since 2010. I started (and abondoned) the first Ethereum meetup in ATL. After having several chances to become a blockchain millionaire and staying on the sidelines, I finally dove in 4th quarter of last year. I watched $3k turn into $115,000 in about 3 months, then watched it evaporate back to $3k. Saying I have a few crypto regrets is the understatement of a lifetime. That being said, this space has taught me one of the most valuable business lessons - skeptics stay broke while dreamers and sale people buy lambos. Whenever webster's gets around to defining "shitcoin" "TRX" should be the first synonym but that hasn't stopped Justin Sun from raking in billions and now buying BitTorrert. Projects putting out products and/or developing hardcore tech like new virtual machines sitting on the sidelines and Justin Sun's are joining the 3 comma club. Capitalism rarely rewards the best and we're just getting to witness this firsthand.
- spookthesunset 8y ago
  > skeptics stay broke while dreamers and sale people buy lambos. And if you believe that, you still haven't learned anything. Only a tiny fraction of crypto "investors" will ever get return on their investment. Only the people at the top of the pyramid will win. You yourself helped line the pockets of the scammers who reeled you in. The entire space is a giant scam. And yeah a couple people walked out with lambos, but so did Bernie Madoff and the Enron execs.... until the rug was pulled from under them....
  - alistproducer2 8y ago
    You clearly are not very knowledgeable about the space. Lots of people got very rich, not just a tiny fraction and doing so didn't require investing in an ico. When I started the meetup, ETH was trading at around $6. You do the math on how much a $2500 position ended up being worth in Dec of 2017. There a ton of legit tech in the space. There's also lots of gold-rush scanners. My 3K to 115K wasn't the result of an ico. I got in well after the ico at $0.05 and it went to $0.11. Had I been smart enough to liquidate at even a $0.09 level I literally could've bought a 2013 limbo (I looked just to torture myself).
freeone3000 8y ago
What, exactly, did they buy here? A trademark? These guys don't make libtorrent, they don't control the DHT, I'm not sure how they're even counting users.
- ddtaylor 8y ago
  I was going to ask the same thing. If they bought the "BitTorrent brand or anything associated with their acquisition of uTorrent then they just spent $140M to be unilaterally hated by that entire community since they have a shady past of doing ad deals and adware/malware.
dang 8y ago
Url changed from https://www.neowin.net/news/bittorrent-has-been-sold-to-blockchain-startup-for-an-alleged-140-million https://www.neowin.net/news/bittorrent-has-been-sold-to-bloc..., which points to this.
asenna 8y ago
True story, about a month ago I was going through BWI airport security check wearing a token conference Tshirt. The TSA guy at the check patting me asked me "Do you hold cryptocurrencies"? That took me by surprise and my paranoid immigrant-brain thought I might get in trouble about carrying cryptos undisclosed in my ledger wallet or something. He repeated again and asked what I hold. That's when I realized he was just an enthusiast and an amateur investor himself. His follow up question was "What do you think of Tron". I tried explaining to him how the project seems like just marketing and that he should be careful. He didn't seem convinced. But that's when I realized. Random non-tech people are heavily invested and rooting for random scam projects. That's not good.
- aphextron 8y ago
  >But that's when I realized. Random non-tech people are heavily invested and rooting for random scam projects. That's not good. Dennis Rodman was literally at the Singapaore Summit with Trump and Kim Jong Un wearing a t-shirt for his "Pot Coin" [0]. I'm not sure I even want to live in this world anymore. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/12/17453080/dennis-rodman-potcoin-bitcoin-donald-trump-kim-jong-un-north-korea https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/12/17453080/dennis-rodman-po...
- sitepodmatt 8y ago
  Exactly. Same with EOS, Iota, NEM and the other 1497 shitcoins. A themeforest logo, someone else's whitepaper through google translate to some language then back to english exported to PDF, pull some random linkedin profiles, a fiverr.com cartoon video, throw $10k at mcafee for a tweet (stick it on a credit card), and your practically at the ICO presale launch stage - on your way to $50m+ scam ICO club... Don't worry about infrastructure or a testnet there are w3schools tutorials on launching a coin on eth, or stellar..
  - throwawaylolx 8y ago
    Nothing of what you said applies to EOS
  - rootsudo 8y ago

251 points by mikece 8y ago

Adamantcheese 8y ago

Who uses BitTorrent anymore? There's a swath of other torrent clients out there that are superior to it.

samueldavid 8y ago
uTorrent FTW
- spacewrangler 8y ago
  qBittorrent is much better
  - tmikaeld 8y ago
    Transmission is betterst
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      Transmission is great but they lost a lot of trust when they started distributing malware from their website.
      - cremp 8y ago
        And twice at that.
      - ambicapter 8y ago
        link? Because the only time I can think of is when their website got hacked and the developers sent out notice as soon as they found out.
        saagarjha 8y ago
        That’s it. As a sibling comment mentioned, I did not phrase that well.
      - ballenf 8y ago
        That's a very disingenuous phrasing. They were hacked. Maybe (probably) due to bad security practices, but they didn't intentionally distribute malware.
        saagarjha 8y ago
        You’re right. I’d edit my comment, but it looks like I can’t anymore.
    - Uberphallus 8y ago
      rTorrent + tmux is my poison
    - amyjess 8y ago
      I used to use Transmission, but I gave up on it because of UI/settings issues. I've since switched to KTorrent.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - squarefoot 8y ago
    Though I use Transmission on my NAS4Free box, which I control remotely through the excellent transgui program (https://github.com/transmission-remote-gui/transgui https://github.com/transmission-remote-gui/transgui) I also install qBittorrent to all Windows/Linux users asking for a client for it being very stable and consistent among platforms, the latter very important for newbies, but I see now they're porting Transmission to Windows as well. Good! I don't consider closed source clients for security reasons, or bloated ones (Vuze etc.) because I'd rather use a spare GB of RAM to make a filesystem more snappy than to load a Java environment that eats alone half the resources of a small server.
  - slfnflctd 8y ago
    Last I heard, Deluge was the preferred minimalist client. I've never noticed much difference between the ones I've tried other than that some have ads. Performance seems to be pretty much the same across the board.
    - Latty 8y ago
      I wouldn't called Deluge minimalist - that's Transmission. Deluge is more of a power-tool, albeit one most people can use happily. The big thing that I like is that you can use the desktop GUI (GTK) client with a remote daemon doing the actual downloading. Plenty of them have web-clients (Deluge does as well), but it's nice using the proper GUI. Other than that, it has all of the usual tools you'd want from a client.
  - NVRM 8y ago
    qBittorrent is much better
- sp332 8y ago
  Doesn't uTorrent have ads? I use deluge because I like having a headless back-end part.
- shp0ngle 8y ago
  uTorrent is owned by BitTorrent company
  - XalvinX 8y ago
    uTorrent is pure ad-filled garbage since they bought it...nearly impossible to use from all the popups and shit. at one time it was the only thing anyone used but i seriously doubt anyone bothers with it anymore.
- wnevets 8y ago
  utorrent went to trash the moment bittorrent bought it. I still use the version before that.
serg_chernata 8y ago
I really liked it, but walked away since the "mining client" controversy. Has anything changed since?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
white-flame 8y ago
BitTorrent The Company isn't focused around their p2p client. They've been trying to become some form of media publisher for a long time now, but haven't had any particular big hits there. At this point, I think the name recognition is the fundamental asset they have as a company.
- XalvinX 8y ago
  Exactly...they have nothing to speak of, but a lot they like to talk about. Cohen got real lucky here and if he is as smart as he is supposed to be, he will stash away a couple million of that for a rainy day. History is littered with inventors who ended up broke.
darkstar999 8y ago
BitTorrent the company is a lot more than a bittorrent client.
- XalvinX 8y ago
  Oh? Care to elucidate on that? What do they actually do and how do they make money besides selling a few ads on that client? Serious question I'm sure everyone here would like to know the answer to.
  - asdsa5325 8y ago
    Feel free to read the article > given the company is not only well-versed in the technologies necessary for decentralised, peer-to-peer networking through its software and protocols but also has a foothold in the entertainment industry via BitTorrent Now, helping independent artists and musicians promulgate their work using the same technology used to pirate the latest episodes of your favourite TV shows
  - bhtru 8y ago
    This is their multimedia content focused website: https://now.bt.co/ https://now.bt.co/
ballenf 8y ago
Or outsource the hassle and risk and use a paid "online torrent client".

ttul 8y ago

Well, I guess they can stop seeding now.

ccnafr 8y ago

Original report from Variety: https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/bittorrent-acquisition-tron-justin-sun-1202841793/ https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/bittorrent-acquisition...

wyldfire 8y ago

I love cryptocoins, I think tokens are kinda interesting and I've read a bit about some of the token/blockchain/storage offerings. But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Tron/Storj/MaidSafe/LBRY/etc. IMO these services could perhaps be a backend for some user-friendly storage broker. But people just don't like the idea of encrypted data where they're the only ones who have the key. "Who do I call if I forget/lose/destroy my passphrase?"

pdpi 8y ago
> But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Tron/Storj/MaidSafe/LBRY/etc. From the outside looking in, that might as well have been "But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Uber/Lyft/Curb". Just different groups trying to build something based on the same idea. Even if the core concepts are similar, it's very much the case, as always, that execution is everything, and each group is invested in making their own solution win in the market.
- dleslie 8y ago
  > But I honestly don't see anything radically distinct among Uber/Lyft/Curb I don't, for Uber and Lyft; I've never heard of Curb. As a user, the two don't distinguish themselves in any way that effects my choice. Execution is nothing if it doesn't meaningfully increase adoption.
  - jtbayly 8y ago
    This is the context of "There's already taxis. What does Uber (or Lyft, not opposed to Lyft) offer?" And the answer is obviously something.
    - kbart 8y ago
      Still from the user perspective I see no difference between Uber/Lyft or taxi - I choose the one which is fastest/cheapest on a given circumstances, so not sure what's your point here.

socratesone 8y ago

I wonder if most blatant bs ICO projects are not just clever (pre-regulation) transfers of wealth from retail investors to management. Tron is the quintessential hype > value project, and now they are bolting on actual assets through buying stuff with their war chest. Even better for management, they don't have a fiduciary duty to token holders..

Bombthecat 8y ago
That's what I thought too. Really strange time to be alive. People give money away in a scam ( at least tron is in my opinion) and the owner go to buy nice stuff...
- samsonradu 8y ago
  What scares me even more is how overvalued everything else must be around us. It really can't be that people give money away in such way and other valuations are still sane, there has to be some correlation. I see companies closing in to 1 trillion USD, housing feeling decoupled from reality and the entire crypto market cap even now is ~300bln USD for what mostly is pure speculation. Odd.
  - deltateam 8y ago
    things aren't overvalued if the money supply has been increasing, which it has if more dollar units exist, and the same or less purchasable units exist, then purchasable units have a value in more dollar units the people increasing the money supply had an idea about what other people would spend the additional money on, but economists never predict human behavior accurately. but it doesn't really matter, the primary recipients of the additional supply are their friends.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      > things aren't overvalued if the money supply has been increasing, which it has If housing prices disconnect and accelerate away from what incomes can support servicing a mortgage, housing is overvalued. If PE ratios start to become wildly unjustified, equities are overvalued. This is regardless of money supply.

rckclmbr 8y ago

as a user of resilio sync should i be concerned?

wmf 8y ago
Resilio has been a separate company for two years; they're not affected by this deal.
- rckclmbr 8y ago
  Good to know, thanks

HelloNurse 8y ago

> creating a potential mining platform for cryptocurrencies. I find calibrating my mistrust of cryptocurrency startups difficult; I cannot tell whether this is a baseless speculation, or an actual betrayal-based business plan, or an attempt to make people share less files by reducing trust in BitTorrent client software.

mihaifm 8y ago

Tron is just an overhyped marketing machine and a massive cash grab. Now they're using the money to buy some real world assets to consolidate their image in the distributed/decentralized world. Their strategy works, what can I say. As far as the product itself, just take a look at their website (https://tron.network/index?lng=en https://tron.network/index?lng=en) under the DApps section, they just list some mockups with dead urls or no additional info...a joke really for a project worth several billions in market cap. Taking a look at their repository (https://github.com/tronprotocol/java-tron https://github.com/tronprotocol/java-tron) there is no sign of a virtual machine that's supposed to run smart contracts, however they do attempt to create some kind of documentation for it (http://wiki.tron.network/en/latest/TRON_Virtual_Machine.html http://wiki.tron.network/en/latest/TRON_Virtual_Machine.html) Seriosly, it's frightening how this project managed to raise so much money from thin air.

kookiekrak 8y ago
Tron VM has a beta release out, but it's not a priority currently. They're working on building and stabilizing the blockchain first. Dapp partnerships are coming but you cant have people commit to building on a nonexistant blockchain ;)
- brokensegue 8y ago
  dapps are a dud. just look at all the dapps eth has
  - mkirklions 8y ago
    I havent tried using them, but what makes them stink? Expensive/Slow?
    - cornholio 8y ago
      Ensuring the integrity of your distributed application by running the same code on every node in the network is a fundamentally bad idea. It only makes sense in zero trust, monetary applications like Bitcoin and Ethereum itself - or speculative tokens built on top of them.

XalvinX 8y ago

BitTorrent does what again? Yeah, I know they claim to have 100-some million users, but that's pretty easy to say. I think the buyers got a bad deal here. I have followed technology for a long time and BitTorrent has managed to get in the headlines once every 2-3 years with some big announcement or the other, all of which have amounted to nothing.. correct me if i'm wrong but i'm pretty sure i'm not. There last big announcement was (surprise, surprise!) another crypto-currency thing to add to the 1600 that are already out. Like that's going to go far...

black_puppydog 8y ago
Just to clarify: you're talking about the company here, not the protocol, right? Otherwise I'd know a few peeps who'd disagree... :)
TheCapn 8y ago
>There last big announcement was (surprise, surprise!) another crypto-currency thing to add to the 1600 that are already out. Like that's going to go far... Maybe I'm wrong but I thought the last announcement as you claim wasn't anything to do with BitTorrent but instead was about Bram Cohen dipping his fingers into Crypto with Chia. Less as an action of BitTorrent but more of an action as him as an individual. He's no longer with BitTorrent according to the wikipedia page on him
WorldMaker 8y ago
It sounds like the Resilio folks made the right call splitting away from BitTorrent the company.

ybrah 8y ago

Lots of recruiters have reached out to me to work for blockchain startups. It's a great marker for which companies to not work for.

VectorLock 8y ago

Looks like BitTorrent finally figured out how to be profitable. :)

lakechfoma 8y ago

Can someone explain what this means for BitTorrent as in the protocol and ecosystem? I did not know that BitTorrent the company even existed or maintained uTorrent until this confusing announcement. I assumed the protocol was an open community thing, but it seems like this company has been trying (unsuccessfully) to become a media empire?

dbmikus 8y ago
I would guess this means absolutely nothing for the protocol and ecosystem. Both have been around a long time (in tech years) and I've never noticed any way that BitTorrent the company affected BitTorrent the protocol.
- strkek 8y ago
  Aren't they basically the ones controlling the protocol specs through the BitTorrent Enhancement Proposals (BEP)? (Honest question.)
  - jzelinskie 8y ago
    Technically they are, but in reality, none of the BEPs matter unless libtorrent implements them. Every modern client links against libtorrent for their torrent logic; when picking a client, you're just selecting what version of libtorrent and UI framework you want. libtorrent is solely maintained by Arvid Norberg who happens to actually work at another blockchain company, Blockstream. If you want to do one thing to support the BitTorrent ecosystem, it's to contribute to libtorrent to reduce the bus factor.

mkirklions 8y ago

This is going to be one of those huge historical moments when idiots/the greedy get screwed and we write about it later. Most tech people I talk to have realized Blockchain is useless outside of applications that require decentralized verification. You wouldnt use blockchain for social media, you wouldnt use blockchain for most download services, you generally wouldnt use blockchain when a centralized server is cheaper and faster. It costs more money to pay multiple people to verify. It costs less money for less people to verify. Not sure the detail I need to go on HN, but the understanding of blockchain on reddit is non-existent. They believe it can and should be used everywhere. This understanding has created uninformed youtube videos and ICOs that promise the moon. Then there seems to be people who work in tech that understand what is useful here, and whats hype. Most techies moved on, sure you own bitcoin because thats a real application of blockchain, but outside of Bitcoin there isnt anything currently useful. Ask a Tron owner about blockchain, that should be enough to show you how misunderstood crypto is, and how the people who own alt coins are going after money rather than tech.

sandworm101 8y ago
I agree. There are a few interesting areas, such as how a blockchain scheme might be useful to the Tor network, but it is all hype. I really laugh at those who think blockchain tech can/will replace property registries, real estate agents, and lawyers. I guess these were the same people who thought SecondLife would replace teleconferencing.
- nisa 8y ago
  In the end you don't need decentralisation for verifying integrity - there is and was a large body of research for verifying integrity of such records like timestamping services.
  - dozzie 8y ago
    Hint: blockchain is a timestamping service. What is new compared to the body of research you speak of is that it doesn't need trusted third party.

rdiddly 8y ago

Is a real life Pied Piper "decentralized" internet even desirable? I kind of like not having a big chunk of the internet on my hard drive and serving it up to other clients.

_salmon 8y ago
This idea is real and being developed by IPFS. See: https://ipfs.io/ https://ipfs.io/
applecrazy 8y ago
I’m particularly curious about the moral/legal aspects of serving websites run by others on one’s own machine. Who takes responsibility when illegal content is discovered? And how does one make sure that the illegal content is not redistributed? (“Illegal” here is a euphemism for anything considered morally wrong to consume or distribute by most of society)
- workinthehead 8y ago
  Seriously? Just use the blockchain to find out who uploaded it.
workinthehead 8y ago
Could never be erased or censored, never go down, never be taken over by telecoms, yeah it has some desirable properties. If you have high speed internet you are most likely already taking part in an internet sharing scheme already.
- omarchowdhury 8y ago
  Never be taken down by telecoms seems like quite a stretch, since they can filter the technology every single one of these distributed platforms rely on: TCP/IP. VPNs won't help if every node must broadcast to other nodes for the network to function, and thus giving away their identity of being a participant in whichever network.

deevolution 8y ago

Maybe bittorrent will finally achieve mainstream adoption. More importantly, maybe tron will find a way to eliminate those pesky bittorrent data leacher

nemoniac 8y ago

Please correct the title to say that it's the BitTorrent trade mark that has been sold, not the technology.

asdsa5325 8y ago
I don't think you are correct. They bought the company, including all of their products.
- nemoniac 8y ago
  I don't mean products. The BitTorrent protocol is open. "The BitTorrent specification is free to use and many clients are open source" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent#Implementations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent#Implementations

danvoell 8y ago

I hope the seller was paid in cash.

bondolo 8y ago

The $140M being "alleged" is the most blockchain part of the title

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ve55 8y ago

Reposting an old comment I made about TRON (the cryptocurrency) here: For those that haven't heard of TRON, it is what I would call one of the most successful scams in the history of cryptocurrency. It is a currency that was made on top of Ethereum (thus, it took no actual effort to create, as this can be done instantly and for free), paired with a significant amount of hype and lies to investors. The TRON Whitepaper (what investors are 'supposed' to read and invest off of) is written terribly and copies significantly from other successful projects: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/7oeh92/trons_trx.. https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/7oeh92/trons_trx.... It's possible that the CEO of TRON made at least $300M USD from selling his own coins that he created out of thin air: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/7oh01s/trx_tron_.. https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/7oh01s/trx_tron_.... The CEO tweets in ways specifically designed to entice investors to speculate on his coin, such as specifically telling people it will go up in value: https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/947463313775927297 https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/947463313775927297, or specifically saying the downwards price movement is due to changes to CoinMarketCap information (completely false): https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/951191786902274048 https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/951191786902274048 Some investors in TRON have lost up to 66% of their net worth thus far (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tron/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tron/), making it one of the largest crashes that has been seen in the top 10 coins on CoinMarketCap in quite awhile. Some of the things investors believe are completely absurd, citing that the Chinese government or Amazon will use TRON. It's unfortunate the levels of misinformation that so rampantly spread and cause many to lose their hard-earned money. original: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16148721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16148721

WorldMaker 8y ago
I thought Tron was supposed to fight for the Users. :( Also, how have Disney not sued them for the trademark violation yet?
- ikeboy 8y ago
  Not a trademark violation since they aren't making a movie or using it in that context.

anonytrary 8y ago

This is surprising news! TRON was (is?) a cryptocurrency everyone on Reddit loved to hate, now they're going around buying BitTorrent -- actually useful software? What is to come of this? Are they going to try and attempt to blockchain-ize BitTorrent's protocol, like vTorrent[0]? [0] http://vtorrent.info/ http://vtorrent.info/

alistproducer2 8y ago

I've been a blockchain watcher since 2010. I started (and abondoned) the first Ethereum meetup in ATL. After having several chances to become a blockchain millionaire and staying on the sidelines, I finally dove in 4th quarter of last year. I watched $3k turn into $115,000 in about 3 months, then watched it evaporate back to $3k. Saying I have a few crypto regrets is the understatement of a lifetime. That being said, this space has taught me one of the most valuable business lessons - skeptics stay broke while dreamers and sale people buy lambos. Whenever webster's gets around to defining "shitcoin" "TRX" should be the first synonym but that hasn't stopped Justin Sun from raking in billions and now buying BitTorrert. Projects putting out products and/or developing hardcore tech like new virtual machines sitting on the sidelines and Justin Sun's are joining the 3 comma club. Capitalism rarely rewards the best and we're just getting to witness this firsthand.

spookthesunset 8y ago
> skeptics stay broke while dreamers and sale people buy lambos. And if you believe that, you still haven't learned anything. Only a tiny fraction of crypto "investors" will ever get return on their investment. Only the people at the top of the pyramid will win. You yourself helped line the pockets of the scammers who reeled you in. The entire space is a giant scam. And yeah a couple people walked out with lambos, but so did Bernie Madoff and the Enron execs.... until the rug was pulled from under them....
- alistproducer2 8y ago
  You clearly are not very knowledgeable about the space. Lots of people got very rich, not just a tiny fraction and doing so didn't require investing in an ico. When I started the meetup, ETH was trading at around $6. You do the math on how much a $2500 position ended up being worth in Dec of 2017. There a ton of legit tech in the space. There's also lots of gold-rush scanners. My 3K to 115K wasn't the result of an ico. I got in well after the ico at $0.05 and it went to $0.11. Had I been smart enough to liquidate at even a $0.09 level I literally could've bought a 2013 limbo (I looked just to torture myself).

freeone3000 8y ago

What, exactly, did they buy here? A trademark? These guys don't make libtorrent, they don't control the DHT, I'm not sure how they're even counting users.

ddtaylor 8y ago
I was going to ask the same thing. If they bought the "BitTorrent brand or anything associated with their acquisition of uTorrent then they just spent $140M to be unilaterally hated by that entire community since they have a shady past of doing ad deals and adware/malware.

dang 8y ago

Url changed from https://www.neowin.net/news/bittorrent-has-been-sold-to-blockchain-startup-for-an-alleged-140-million https://www.neowin.net/news/bittorrent-has-been-sold-to-bloc..., which points to this.

asenna 8y ago

True story, about a month ago I was going through BWI airport security check wearing a token conference Tshirt. The TSA guy at the check patting me asked me "Do you hold cryptocurrencies"? That took me by surprise and my paranoid immigrant-brain thought I might get in trouble about carrying cryptos undisclosed in my ledger wallet or something. He repeated again and asked what I hold. That's when I realized he was just an enthusiast and an amateur investor himself. His follow up question was "What do you think of Tron". I tried explaining to him how the project seems like just marketing and that he should be careful. He didn't seem convinced. But that's when I realized. Random non-tech people are heavily invested and rooting for random scam projects. That's not good.

aphextron 8y ago
>But that's when I realized. Random non-tech people are heavily invested and rooting for random scam projects. That's not good. Dennis Rodman was literally at the Singapaore Summit with Trump and Kim Jong Un wearing a t-shirt for his "Pot Coin" [0]. I'm not sure I even want to live in this world anymore. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/12/17453080/dennis-rodman-potcoin-bitcoin-donald-trump-kim-jong-un-north-korea https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/12/17453080/dennis-rodman-po...
sitepodmatt 8y ago
Exactly. Same with EOS, Iota, NEM and the other 1497 shitcoins. A themeforest logo, someone else's whitepaper through google translate to some language then back to english exported to PDF, pull some random linkedin profiles, a fiverr.com cartoon video, throw $10k at mcafee for a tweet (stick it on a credit card), and your practically at the ICO presale launch stage - on your way to $50m+ scam ICO club... Don't worry about infrastructure or a testnet there are w3schools tutorials on launching a coin on eth, or stellar..
- throwawaylolx 8y ago
  Nothing of what you said applies to EOS
- rootsudo 8y ago