The BitTorrent Token (BTT) is a multi-purpose token that is a part of the BitTorrent ecosystem, following its acquisition by cryptocurrency focused entity, the TRON Foundation, in July 2018. The news quickly made the rounds and TRON founder Justin Sun outlined some grand ambitions for BitTorrent in the near future, which include rewards seeders with the token for their efforts.
File sharing software like BitTorrent and utorrent are extremely popular, whose user bases number in the many millions. TRON saw this as an opportunity to expand its own network.
The BitTorrent Token runs on the TRON protocol, and can be used to reward seeders for sharing files on the peer-to-peer file sharing network. Users can also pay more BTT to receive more bandwidth, a sort of premium file sharing option that can be paid for.
Most recently, the BitTorrent team announced three new plans to incentive stakeholders to use the tokens: users, partners and the general ecosystem. The first concentrates on increasing educational efforts surrounding blockchain technology and “will facilitate access to the latest BitTorrent technology and TRON’s ecosystem.” The second relates to a partnership plan that will encompass exchanges and wallets that support BTT. The third is an attempt to allow clients relying on the BitTorrent protocol to offer BTT to their users.
Details on development are a little scarce, but it has been made known that BitTorrent Enhancement Protocols (BEPs), wallet support and dapp experimentation are on the agenda for 2019. The team is also working on bringing content over from the TRON ecosystem.