BitTorrent

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BitTorrent is a P2P network protocol for decentralized file sharing on the Internet.

Timeframe

The exact date for the start of the sales is TBA, the sale will be conducted via Binance Launchpad platform in January 2019. 

Token Metrics

At the event of preparing this report, the information is yet to be announced. The Whitepaper states that the total supply of tokens will be 990 000 000 000 BTT.

Social metrics

The website exists for 17 years.

It has 14 000 visitors daily and 400 000 visitors monthly. 

There are 48 000 followers of the official BitTorrent Twitter page, while Justin Sun's Twitter has 700 000 followers. 1-2 posts announcing the crowdsale on Binance Launchpad are published there daily. 

The project's official Telegram channel was initiated on January 9, 2019, and attracted more than 2500 users in less than 12 hours. 

The official Facebook page has 180 000 followers. 

Key players

Currently, there is no information about the project available. We could find about an ongoing hiring process for various departments, such as Business Development, Sales, Data Science, Product Management, Design, Engineering, Information Technology, Legal.

Technology

BitTorrent together with Tron is offering an ICO project (crypto crowdfunding project) that might become one of the most significant ICOs of 2019. We cannot help but put it in the same category with 2018's Telegram TON. Generally speaking, TON is more ambitious in aiming to create a pervasive crypto infrastructure with its own blockchain, payment system, user identification (passportization), anonymization, etc. P2P 'torrent-like' file sharing is supposed to be one of the TON's features, which is exactly what BitTorrent has been doing for already 16 years. However, there is one killer argument that should be a reason for at least considering the BitTorrent project. At present BitTorrent has more than 1 billion (!) users from almost all world's countries, while on March 2018 Telegram's user base accounted only for 200 millions people. The primary BitTorrent clients BitTorrent & µTorrent are downloaded 1 million (!) times daily. The average of protocol's daily users is 100 million. As a result, if the team will manage to successfully implement its ideas the Tron may become one of the most powerful contemporary blockchains. At the same time, the joint platform of BitTorrent and Tron will become one of the greatest examples of long-awaited mass-adoption of the blockchain technologies.

The published Whitepaper (v08.5 at the time of this review) is a preliminary document 22 pages long, which contains the project's basic principles and ideas. Since the project is based on the existing Tron solution the document holds no information about the blockchain itself (consensuses, mining, etc.).

The purpose of the project

There are three main reasons that pushed BitTorrent to utilize blockchain technologies: 

1. Blockchain solutions allow integrating additional services (dApps) for the existing user base, which is not possible via currently used technologies. 
2. The present BitTorrent protocol has a number of flaws, which among others limit the torrents' lifespans. 
3. The torrent network's users aren't willing to pay via fiat currencies for the services provided (mainly due to the privacy concerns). 

The main goals of the BitTorrent Token project (later referred to as BTT) are migrating to a new model for interaction between torrent network participants (improving the existing 'barter' economy by introducing the motivation mechanisms via token rewards), along with the protocol development in terms of the new technological environment and creation of the ecosystem that incentivises external developers to build various dApps on top of it. 

The motivational economy

One of the most prominent issues of the modern BitTorrent ecosystems is the short torrent lifespan, which is caused by an imbalance between the upload and download speeds. After the full download, a user doesn't have a commitment to continue seeding the file. As a result, there is a disproportion between the uploaded and downloaded data, which makes 'barter' economy inefficient at times. 

The BTT implies expanding the existing protocol by the following: 

• A cryptographic token TRON TRC-10 used for mutual settlements between the users will be introduced. 
• The system's architecture allows for launching a private high-speed blockchain (private ledger), which apparently will be based on the same Tron technology (it's not clear from the document), and organization of the token flow between the private blockchain and Tron public chain. 
• The service providers (seeders) will be able to set the prices (reserved prices) for uploading torrent chunks. 
• The service users will be able to place bids on the required torrent chunks. 
• Different types of auctions will be conducted for competing for the deals. 
• Crypto wallets along with price mechanisms of torrents' chunks will be embedded in BitTorrent and µTorrent clients. 
• It's worth mentioning that the existing free file sharing is being intact. The proposed crypto extensions are only presenting users with an additional option of buying (or selling) required (rare) chunks in case they are not available or the amount available is scarce in the free sources.

A short overview of the technology

The current BitTorrent protocol is based on “tit-for-tat” mechanism, where a seeder allows certain number (defined by torrent settings) of users from a large group to download. In BitTorrent's terms, it's called 'choking/unchoking'. Only the unchoked users are able to download. Usually, they are the first N users from the list with the highest download speed. 

The BitTorrent Token brings the new indicator - BitTorrent Speed ™ and matching process for uploaders and downloaders start to factor the new BitTorrent Speed metric. To put it simply, a user, who puts a higher bid for a requested chunk will be unchoked sooner. 

The uploaders set prices for torrents, which are called 'reserved prices' and can be calculated in a complex manner, e.g. it can be reset after each completed uploading and gradually increase (time-dependent function) in standby mode until new requests are submitted.  

The downloaders are setting the bids that they are ready to pay for each required chunk. The auto-bid mechanism will be implemented to automatically calculate bids by using the entire amount of funds dedicated on a crypto wallet, auction 'aggression' ratio, etc. The bidding UI is planned to be rather versatile. 

Here we will not focus on technical details (service message exchanging, detection system, auction, matching, conducting 'deals'), even considering that the Whitepaper has very concise information on the matter. 

Expandability of the services

The team states that BitTorrent foundation has spent around 10 months on studying diverse dApp technologies, implying the adaptation of the existing protocol for the introduction of services like online messaging, BitTorrent-based CDN, P2P online video streaming, file, and distributed websites.  

The ecosystem is designed to incentivize the external developers for adding various dApps to it, which includes paid services for sharing of proprietary content, distributed content storage services, decentralized proxy-services, etc. 

Summary 

Most probably, the BitTorrent Token project is undergoing a stage of pre-architecture analysis, outlining the requirements and the most basic compilation. As a consequence, the Whitepaper is rather declarative and shallow. However, because of the very powerful market-leverage and the tremendous user base, the project shall attract a high level of attention from all the participants of the blockchain sphere. 

Some thoughts on the ICO and short-term investment potential.

One of the most remarkable green flags is Binance Launchpad. Historically, all the project that was funded via the Launchpad were listed on Binance, and this time it's also highly likely.  

It's also worth noting that Binance CEO's and Justin Sun's reputations will be at stake. 

The most likely and real scenario is that the individual cap will be quite small (2-3 ETH), the project will give multiples at the moment of listing with excellent media and market making support. In this case, both private and public sales' investors will benefit. This will act as a signal that the 'ICO industry is not dead, and you can still invest profitably'. Time will tell what is going to happen afterward.