BitTorrent and TRON Reveal Details on Project Atlas, Seeders to Be Paid in Crypto

BitTorrent and project TRON (TRX) have revealed more of their plans to work their services together, two months after TRON acquired the popular P2P file-sharing client. Late last month, BitTorrent revealed that they would reward seeders with cryptocurrency for their efforts in a bid to strengthen the file sharing community.

It's official. BitTorrent is now part of #TRON. We pioneered the world's largest decentralized p2p protocol, now we're joining forces with TRON to build the future of the decentralized internet. Read more at https://t.co/ZoCPl5c5wS. @Tronfoundation @justinsuntron pic.twitter.com/EI3xP8Gdz2 — BitTorrent Inc. (@BitTorrent) July 24, 2018

Project Atlas, the title of this new effort, is aimed squarely at bolstering content distribution.

Implementation will take place in two phases, with the first being revealed as connecting 100 million users of BitTorrent to the TRON blockchain. The primary purpose is to make the BitTorrent network faster by incentivizing seeders to seed for a longer period of time, as well as dedicate more bandwidth and storage.

BitTorrent has confirmed that these features will be backwards compatible, so if seeders choose to work with a new generation of users, it will not be a problem. TRON’s features will also be optional.

To facilitate this process, a custom token and a token economy that runs within the P2P client will be used. TRON also reassures users that, as the platform uses a delegated Proof-of-Stake consensus protocol, users are rewarded on the basis of how much resources they provide, not mining.

The team has put together a video explaining how the system will work:

Justin Sun, CEO and founder of TRON, echoes the sentiment of direction connection between creators and consumers championed by projects like Basic Attention Token, saying:

“Project Atlas is the foundation for a new way of content distribution. To start, the product will feature faster downloads, more seeds, no mining, and backward compatibility. It is adapted to the world we live in today: mobile, connected, and transparent. We aim to eventually empower all content creators and their communities by eliminating the middleman and enabling content creators to distribute directly to users.”

In July, TRON completed its $120 million effort to purchase BitTorrent, which resulted in a number of employees exiting BitTorrent, as reported by CoinDesk. Initial reports noted concerns that TRON might begin charging users with cryptocurrency fees, though that fear was quickly dispelled by Sun.

The collaboration seems like a very suited match, given that both P2P file-sharing and permissionless blockchain ledgers are decentralized systems that circumvent the need for a central entity to provide the relevant critical service.

The results of this collaboration should provide an insight into whether, and to what degree, cryptocurrencies can incentivize users to provide a service.