5 ms·

If bittorrent was invented today, it would probably be tied to a cryptocurrency scheme.

by dkarras 5y ago

tiborsaas 5y ago
Well, that happened eventually :) https://www.bittorrent.com/token/btt/ https://www.bittorrent.com/token/btt/
- agilob 5y ago
  Shame it happened, it ruined trust in the company when most employees left https://globalcoinreport.com/tron-trx-bittorrent-acquisition-employees-leaving/ https://globalcoinreport.com/tron-trx-bittorrent-acquisition...
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  Fortunately BitTorrent the company isn't BitTorrent the protocol. I stopped using the "official" client a long time ago as it grew cancerous.
reidjs 5y ago
Funny you mention that. The altcoin Tronix acquired BitTorrent a few years ago. I didn’t even know BitTorrent was a company until that happened.
- colordrops 5y ago
  How did a coin acquire a company? Or is there a company that issues Tronix that acquired the company?
dannyw 5y ago
As someone who uses private trackers, bear with me for a moment: On private trackers, your download and upload is tracked. You are required to maintain a certain ratio. Most tracker sites allow users to "donate" money to get extra ratio. Most tracker sites allow users to request new files and pay a bounty, in uploads (i.e. ratio). In effect, it is already a currency. Trackers get seized from time to time, and if the entire state of a tracker is stored in a decentralised manner, then seizure is no longer a risk. The dataset stored by a tracker, in the age of magnet links, is very small, and can be replicated amongst all nodes. So, as someone who usually rolls my eyes at people saying "blockchain", this is actually a perfect use for blockchain technology.
- klipt 5y ago
  But wouldn't a public Blockchain make the private tracker not private anymore?
  - colordrops 5y ago
    Private as in not visible, or private as in controlled by a single entity? If the former, just encrypt the data. If the latter, then use a smart contract where only certain key holders can update the tracker data.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Mutable torrents can be used for distributing a tracker’s metadata corpus using BitTorrent: http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0046.html http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0046.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12257065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12257065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17306106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17306106 https://static.usenix.org/events/woot10/tech/full_papers/Wolchok.pdf https://static.usenix.org/events/woot10/tech/full_papers/Wol...
  - dannyw 5y ago
    This is cool, but it doesn't address the user currency tracking that all private trackers have (so torrents reliably get seeded). The problem of how to solve how much currency each pseudonym has, and allows transactions between them, with no central intermediary or point of failure, is solved by a cryptocurrency.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - zdkl 5y ago
      What about the economics of this "proof of seeding" scheme?
- gbrown_ 5y ago
  This brought back fond memories of spending much of my teens on what.cd, good times.
etaioinshrdlu 5y ago
Bram Cohen has not let you down! He makes coins now: https://www.chia.net/ https://www.chia.net/
- eesmith 5y ago
  What an odd viewpoint. No wonder most people don't deliver amazing things - it avoids the social pressure to keep producing, lest we believe that person is letting us down. BTW, the article includes: "BitTorrent’s inventor is one of the driving forces behind the ‘greener’ Chia coin, which launched earlier last May."
  - Nursie 5y ago
    A coin that uses proof of storage space instead of cpu cycles is very debatable on the green creds.
    - eesmith 5y ago
      Which is why I believe that 'greener' is in quotes. But the main point of my heavily down-voted comment is that I can't conceive why anyone should feel let down by Cohen, even if he hadn't done a thing in the last 15 years. I actually believe that view corrosively discourages people from doing something exceptional, for worry that they won't be able to maintain that output, and thus face social stigmas like "you let us down."
      - etaioinshrdlu 5y ago
        Sorry: "not let you down" was intended as a sort of joke. It should be read as the very opposite: Bram Cohen is basically a sellout capitalizing on his name-brand-value by making his next-gen distributed protocol tied to a token sale that will make him very rich.
        eesmith 5y ago
        Ahh, I see. I mis-interpreted it as comment in support of that particular form of cryptocurrency. Thank you for the clarification!
shp0ngle 5y ago
Bran Cohen himself got into cryptocurrency with Chia (which is however otherwise unrelated to BitTorrent), and BitTorrent itself got swallowed into TRON. So yeah, it is already tied to a cryptocurrency scheme.
dagmx 5y ago
People have already made it into one https://www.coindesk.com/price/bittorrent https://www.coindesk.com/price/bittorrent It's annoying because I want to look up technical details of BitTorrent and have to now scrub past all these crypto fanatics and their posts about it going to the moon or crashing.

If bittorrent was invented today, it would probably be tied to a cryptocurrency scheme.

tiborsaas 5y ago

Well, that happened eventually :) https://www.bittorrent.com/token/btt/ https://www.bittorrent.com/token/btt/

agilob 5y ago
Shame it happened, it ruined trust in the company when most employees left https://globalcoinreport.com/tron-trx-bittorrent-acquisition-employees-leaving/ https://globalcoinreport.com/tron-trx-bittorrent-acquisition...
hypertele-Xii 5y ago
Fortunately BitTorrent the company isn't BitTorrent the protocol. I stopped using the "official" client a long time ago as it grew cancerous.

reidjs 5y ago

Funny you mention that. The altcoin Tronix acquired BitTorrent a few years ago. I didn’t even know BitTorrent was a company until that happened.

colordrops 5y ago
How did a coin acquire a company? Or is there a company that issues Tronix that acquired the company?

dannyw 5y ago

As someone who uses private trackers, bear with me for a moment: On private trackers, your download and upload is tracked. You are required to maintain a certain ratio. Most tracker sites allow users to "donate" money to get extra ratio. Most tracker sites allow users to request new files and pay a bounty, in uploads (i.e. ratio). In effect, it is already a currency. Trackers get seized from time to time, and if the entire state of a tracker is stored in a decentralised manner, then seizure is no longer a risk. The dataset stored by a tracker, in the age of magnet links, is very small, and can be replicated amongst all nodes. So, as someone who usually rolls my eyes at people saying "blockchain", this is actually a perfect use for blockchain technology.

klipt 5y ago
But wouldn't a public Blockchain make the private tracker not private anymore?
- colordrops 5y ago
  Private as in not visible, or private as in controlled by a single entity? If the former, just encrypt the data. If the latter, then use a smart contract where only certain key holders can update the tracker data.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
Mutable torrents can be used for distributing a tracker’s metadata corpus using BitTorrent: http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0046.html http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0046.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12257065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12257065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17306106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17306106 https://static.usenix.org/events/woot10/tech/full_papers/Wolchok.pdf https://static.usenix.org/events/woot10/tech/full_papers/Wol...
- dannyw 5y ago
  This is cool, but it doesn't address the user currency tracking that all private trackers have (so torrents reliably get seeded). The problem of how to solve how much currency each pseudonym has, and allows transactions between them, with no central intermediary or point of failure, is solved by a cryptocurrency.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - zdkl 5y ago
    What about the economics of this "proof of seeding" scheme?
gbrown_ 5y ago
This brought back fond memories of spending much of my teens on what.cd, good times.

etaioinshrdlu 5y ago

Bram Cohen has not let you down! He makes coins now: https://www.chia.net/ https://www.chia.net/

eesmith 5y ago
What an odd viewpoint. No wonder most people don't deliver amazing things - it avoids the social pressure to keep producing, lest we believe that person is letting us down. BTW, the article includes: "BitTorrent’s inventor is one of the driving forces behind the ‘greener’ Chia coin, which launched earlier last May."
- Nursie 5y ago
  A coin that uses proof of storage space instead of cpu cycles is very debatable on the green creds.
  - eesmith 5y ago
    Which is why I believe that 'greener' is in quotes. But the main point of my heavily down-voted comment is that I can't conceive why anyone should feel let down by Cohen, even if he hadn't done a thing in the last 15 years. I actually believe that view corrosively discourages people from doing something exceptional, for worry that they won't be able to maintain that output, and thus face social stigmas like "you let us down."
    - etaioinshrdlu 5y ago
      Sorry: "not let you down" was intended as a sort of joke. It should be read as the very opposite: Bram Cohen is basically a sellout capitalizing on his name-brand-value by making his next-gen distributed protocol tied to a token sale that will make him very rich.
      - eesmith 5y ago
        Ahh, I see. I mis-interpreted it as comment in support of that particular form of cryptocurrency. Thank you for the clarification!

shp0ngle 5y ago

Bran Cohen himself got into cryptocurrency with Chia (which is however otherwise unrelated to BitTorrent), and BitTorrent itself got swallowed into TRON. So yeah, it is already tied to a cryptocurrency scheme.

dagmx 5y ago

People have already made it into one https://www.coindesk.com/price/bittorrent https://www.coindesk.com/price/bittorrent It's annoying because I want to look up technical details of BitTorrent and have to now scrub past all these crypto fanatics and their posts about it going to the moon or crashing.