Tron isn’t always viewed in a positive light. With accusations of a plagiarized white paper and a boisterous CEO in Justin Sun, there are many low points to contrast against the highs. That said, as CoinDesk learned from niTROn Summit, Tron is becoming something a little more than a project to make fun of. In fact, thanks to their purchase of BitTorrent, Sun and company are being taken much more seriously than beforehand.
“BitTorrent is different, because we already have 100 million active users. I think that is the huge challenge for other companies,” says Sun in a statement to CoinDesk. As you may know, the point of BitTorrent is peer-to-peer file transfers. It has worked just fine for a long while, but the proposed BitTorrent Token (BTT) will supposedly streamline the process even more – at least, according to Justin Knoll, leader of the BTT protocol, Project Atlas, revealed.
Justin Sun at the niTROn Summit, Image from Coindesk
Incentivizing Shares
Knoll believes profoundly in Atlas. He claims that smaller files may not have a seed on the platform, meaning it’s near inaccessible to most users. “We can do better than this. We can make it so there’s actual rational incentives for people to promote to seeders,” he says. He wants there to be an incentive for users to download and seed content. BitTorrent has that responsibility because it introduced the world to torrenting.
The BTT token will be ultimately optional, but because it will incentivize more users into the platform, downloads will be faster for everyone – even those who don’t use it.
TRX holders will be the recipients of a BTT airdrop, limited to 10.1 percent of the total amount of tokens over the next six years. According to Sun, the first airdrop will be in mid-February. Six percent of the total amount of BTT will be sold on Binance come January 28th, and there will be a $7.2 million hard cap.
However, another peer-to-peer platform, Mojo Nation, tried working with a digital currency and had failed. Sun says not to worry, as his platform has so many more users than Mojo Nation. “The job of introducing the complexity of money on the internet falls to an established player, rather than a crypto startup,” reads the post.
The connection between Tron and BitTorrent ensures Tron is seen as a more reputable brand as well. Speaking of positive branding, Sun brought on Kobe Bryant to showcase his project at the niTROn Summit. The goal here is to associate the Tron branding with an uber-popular name. Bryant didn’t speak much, but him being there says more than enough.
Bringing in the Big Names
That said, Tron is also partnering with more substantial groups. For example, Sanja Kon, Vice President at crypto payment company UTRUST, claims that while they focus only on tokens their buyers want, customers are very interested in Sun’s offering, reports CoinDesk. Another investor, Galia Benartzi, a co-founder at Bancor, is considering working directly with the Tron blockchain.
Bancor is interesting because it automatically converts tokens, but it’s only compatible with Ethereum or EOS-based projects as of now. It will take a lot of work to incorporate the Tron blockchain, but the company thinks it will probably be worth it:
“We’ll support every blockchain that’s interesting. We have to build the cross-blockchain compatibility,” says Benartzi. Should they incorporate the technology, that’s a massive boost in the credibility of Sun’s project. That’s not to mention the other tokens looking to launch on Tron’s blockchain.
Topping it all off is Jonathan Chou, CEO at Bee Token. Chou’s project is involved with the decentralized sharing-economy space, and he has great faith in Tron. “It’s all about the market penetration of awareness,” says Chou. “That’s going to be the biggest dapp on blockchain, period.”
