Opinion: Why not optimistic about BitTorrent speed

Earlier this morning, according to Sun Yuchen's Weibo news, the wave field was officially launched on July 8, San Francisco time, BitTorrent Speed.

As we all know, BitTorrent Speed ​​is born out of BitTorrent, a well-known file-sharing protocol that legally shares copyright-free content with others around the world—or more practically, downloads illegal content from Pirate Bay. BitTorrent Speed ​​is trying to make money by adding blockchains.

It is reported that BitTorrent Speed ​​is designed to give users BTT token rewards in exchange for seeds and bandwidth for faster download speeds.

This will be one of the biggest examples of blockchaining, that is, adding an existing product to the blockchain. Similar blockchaining attempts include Long Island Iced Tea's turn to blockchains and Digipulse, which uses encryption to enhance online file storage, but without exception, these attempts have failed.

• Take stock of central bank officials' important points: What is Libra's inspiration for the central bank's digital currency?
• Exchange captures EOS super nodes
• Opinion: power is power

So, will BitTorrent Speed ​​move against the current?

In July 2018, Sun Yuchen acquired BitTorrent Inc. through ico. After raising $70 million, in January of this year, he managed to raise $7 million by selling BitTorrent tokens and promised that these tokens would have a real use case. .

If successful, this will be an important deal that will bring cryptocurrencies to more people. According to BitTorrent, the agreement is used by 170 million people each month, accounting for 4% of daily Internet traffic.

The purpose of BitTorrent tokens is to give people incentives to seed files. In theory, this should make the network more powerful, make more resources available, and make the network faster. But there are a few questions:

1. It doesn't really use blockchains – at least from the perspective of purists.

Due to the lack of a fast and scalable public blockchain, BitTorrent will use high-performance private ledgers. This non-chain blockchain (which is the database for most people) will log transactions. This centralized service will then periodically upload the transaction to the wavefield blockchain.

2, this service is not free

One of the reasons for BitTorrent's success is that it is free. In contrast, BitTorrent Speed ​​is a service that users get faster download speeds through auctions. This means they will pay to ensure that they continue to receive this seed. This means they have to pay for the ability to download files again and again. This feature doesn't seem to make much sense.

3. High inflation rate

BitTorrent plans to issue regular rewards to encourage people to start using paid services. The funds paid for the award will be paid for by the inflation of the BitTorrent token. Currently, about 20% of the supply is cyclical – it will increase to 80% in four years. This means that unless more people enter the market, everyone who holds and uses the token will see the price of the token fall.

4. This is an upcoming privacy crisis.

Of the people who download illegal files, not many people want their personal information to be associated with any kind of financial record, let alone with their bank. In this system, users will have a BitTorrent address that shows them transactions with people who share files – if there is anything on the blockchain. (Any non-existent transaction will appear in BitTorrent's centralized record, and any government can request data from it). Therefore, when a user wants to redeem, such as using an encrypted wallet embedded in kyc or sending money to a bank, it can expose their fraudulent transactions.

5. It creates a black market for illegal content.

BitTorrent Speed ​​is hard to crack by the government because it is based on peer-to-peer networks. In addition, no funds were transferred elsewhere – and this did not even motivate the government to spend money to stop it. However, once people get paid by sending documents, this creates an online black market hidden in the public eye. Moreover, because there is a centralized company behind it that records everyone's transactions, the government may be too easy to get involved. This means that not only is everyone more likely to be recognized, but law enforcement agencies also have greater motivation to intervene.

In addition, the launch of BitTorrent Speed ​​did not bring the expected results to the users. The problems of “high threshold”, “not downloadable”, “difficult to use”, “no Chinese tutorial” also made people push on Sun’s boss. The new project is disappointing.

It is worth mentioning that, as of now, the BTT price has not risen because of the good, but fell by nearly 5%.

Source: Decrypt

Compile: Sharing Finance Neo

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!