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BitTorrent is Selling For $140M To Justin Sun and Tron (techcrunch.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the musical-chair dept.

BitTorrent, an early mover (and currently the largest player) in decentralised computing architecture to distribute and store data, is being sold for $140 million in cash to Justin Sun and his blockchain media startup Tron, TechCrunch has learned. From a report: Variety yesterday reported that a sale of the company to Sun closed last week, without naming a price, following rumors that circulated for at least a month that the two were in negotiations. Shareholders have now been sent the paperwork to sign off on the deal, and that has detailed the $140 million price. Some are, we understand, still disputing the terms, as more than one person claims to have made the introduction between Sun and BitTorrent. A source says it's unlikely that the disputes will actually kill the acquisition, given how long BitTorrent has been looking for a buyer. BitTorrent most recently said it has about 170 million users of its products.

46 comments

  1. Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Have the Slashdot editors been replaced with drunk monkeys?

    1. Re:Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The editors got bought out by an I.T. closet cleaner for three pennies on April 1, 2018.

    2. Re: Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yawn.

  2. Less than a buck a user? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    BitTorrent most recently said it has about 170 million users of its products.

    So, $140 million in the sale, 170 million users ... so, like, $0.82 per user.

    Sounds like BitTorrent is about done for.

    1. Re:Less than a buck a user? by KiloByte · · Score: 2

      Sounds like BitTorrent is about done for.

      But who cares about a single adware-ridden client when you have so many better alternatives? It's not even the original client but something that company bought to replace its buggy and bloated old code, then proceed to mismaintain.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    2. Re:Less than a buck a user? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Users don't even mean anything other than a gauge for house useful the tech is. You can use the protocol without ever touching any software or network this company owns or operates.

    3. Re:Less than a buck a user? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      house useful?

    4. Re:Less than a buck a user? by Matheus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My response was more: Wait BitTorrent is a company? With actual Value??

      Most of the torrent sites I'm on banned their client a long time ago for lots of good reasons.. I mean maybe 170M users worth of basic "I downloaded this" user data is technically worth "something" these days but I could think of so many better things to blow $140M on...

      NothingOfValueWas..Bought.

    5. Re:Less than a buck a user? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      "How useful." The commenter was obviously posting from a mobile device, as how->house is consistent with what would be expected of an on-screen keyboard and autocorrect.

    6. Re:Less than a buck a user? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      I posted from a desktop computer. I can only guess I got as far as "ho" and started thinking ahead to the word useful and got the "u" in there and then filled in the only word that came to mind that started with hou.

    7. Re: Less than a buck a user? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yea I would have purchased some hookers and blow. At least with the blow I can sniff half and make my money back on the other half. The hookers...well, you sell them the blow in return for sex. It all works out in the end.

  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 0

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. Well, this thread got derailed.... by bev_tech_rob · · Score: 2

    by political trolls and Creimer trolls.....nothing to see here...move along...

    --
    You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
    1. Re:Well, this thread got derailed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      msmash was fearing a slow day and called in all its trolls to "stir conversation."

    2. Re:Well, this thread got derailed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      by political trolls and Creimer trolls.....nothing to see here...move along...

      It's about a "blockchain media startup" so what quality of discussion do you expect exactly?

      All comments on this story should be auto-replaced with the textual equivalent of a long Bronx cheer.

      Captcha: Bowels!

  5. A sucker born every minute by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Kudos to the guys who built BitTorrent, enjoy the beach!

  6. Re:Why in US dollars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what does this have to do with bittorrent?

  7. Re:Why in US dollars by omnichad · · Score: 1

    Because they're not the currency of the present.

  8. Re:For a complete shitcoin... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    Is it really related to TRX?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  9. A buck per ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... customer?

    How cheap.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  10. Re:Less than Russia paid Trump for America... by CaptainDork · · Score: 0

    "Treason," is not the word you're looking for.

    It has two components that do not apply:

    1.) No United States citizen has declared war on the United States.

    The last time that happened was the Civil War.

    2.) The United States has no list of enemies.

    The last time that happened was WWII.

    *The United States has, at times, considered a list of enemies, but the idea fell through because of the complications that arise in that it would nullify many treaties that the United States has with other countries.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  11. Re:For a complete shitcoin... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have no idea how they plan to shoehorn TRX into bittorrent, but I suspect it could actually be a way to "legitimize" blockchain media distribution. Somehow.

  12. What is there to sell? by wardrich86 · · Score: 2

    I don't understand - BT is an open-source protocol... what the hell are they selling?

    1. Re: What is there to sell? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Customers.

    2. Re:What is there to sell? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IBM mainframe emulators. That's what Tronguy is most famous for, well, that and dressing up like Tron from the movie Tron.

    3. Re:What is there to sell? by pots · · Score: 3, Informative

      There's also a BitTorrent company, which maintains the original bittorrent client as well as MuTorrent (Greek letter Mu. I can't get Slashdot to accept that.). I think they make money somehow. Not sure how.

    4. Re:What is there to sell? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's "micro"torrent; as in the funny-looking "m" that represents the metric measurement.

    5. Re:What is there to sell? by novakyu · · Score: 1

      Most normal people just type it as uTorrent, spelling visually.

    6. Re:What is there to sell? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They don't actually maintain the "original" bittorrent client, if we're being pedantic.

      The original client was written in Python, and the coding was done by Bram Cohen, well before he and a couple of others started Bittorrent, inc. Its UI was modelled after a web browser's "download" dialog.

      This Python client was forked a few times, One of the better-known ones was BitTornado (also known as theshad0w's experimental client), which was an early and fairly capable torrent client.

      The problem with the Python client(s) was that it required an open port for each active torrent, and it did not have good bandwidth controls, since every active torrent was a separate process. [1]

      (For whatever reason, people also seemed to complain about memory usage of these Python clients. I never got why. Never had such problems under Linux.)

      Then came BitTorrent 4.x which revamped the UI to allow multiple torrents in a single window but the world had moved on by then.

      Then, many years later, Bittorrent inc. bought the rights to mutorrent and replaced Bram's original open-source Python client with a customised mutorrent.

      Well, that's it for today's history lesson. I know I'm omitting some points, but I hope it was helpful.

      [1] There was a console-based client, 'btlaunchmanycurses.py', where everything was tucked inside a single process, but the other weaknesses remained. Besides, only us *nix geeks used the console stuff.

  13. More blockchain? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

    I know blockchain is a cool technology. Decentralised database with entirely untrusted nodes? Cool. But enough already! It's a niche idea, with very niche applications. I wouldn't trust any company that emphasises their use of blockchain. Blockchain should be a tool to support a real application, not an end in itsself.

    1. Re:More blockchain? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Decentralized digital currency and trustlessness is not a "niche idea."

  14. its 2018, bittorrent is so 90s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    is bittorrent still a thing? its 2018 for cripes sake.

  15. Who the fuck is Justin Sun? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 0

    What has he done?

    And why should I care that he is buying a company that created an open source protocol??

    1. Re:Who the fuck is Justin Sun? by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      why should I care that he is buying a company that created an open source protocol??

      You shouldn't care about Justin Sun. You should care about the buying of bittorrent. It's just like if Mozilla was bought by person X. The fact that it's Mozilla is what's interesting.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    2. Re:Who the fuck is Justin Sun? by whh3 · · Score: 1

      Agreed. It's hard to stomach that such an interesting and important technology that really launched so much ancillary research and development will be in the hands of a single person who is known for plagiarizing ideas from another.

      I really think that, despite the way that it is unfortunately associated with copyright violations, BT is a very valuable technology.

      --
      remove nospam. to email!
    3. Re: Who the fuck is Justin Sun? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He is Justin, son... Get it???

  16. You mean so unlike ALL of /. nowadays? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The site died > 10 years ago. We're just the zombies.

  17. Re:Why in US dollars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Creimer. The only guy with a fatter ass than Trump.

  18. Re: Why in US dollars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You? Get the 2-liter bottle out of it. Your pants will fit again.

  19. Justin Sun is doomed. by weedjams · · Score: 1

    This is my opinion, nothing more.

    Yes, that is one really bad clickbait subject, and, as you know, not my style but I have to say this, in full, to as many of you as can read and comprehend.

    Go to his Linkedin.
    Spend a minute researching what he lists as his kung-fu.
    It is ALL BS.

    This guy is an extremely photogenic shill master.
    Very eloquent, very skilled, very good looking.
    Hell, I'd flip that and I'm not even BI or gay.

    But when comes to money?
    FUCK NO.
    STAY FAR AWAY from anything he is involved in!

    Thank me later,
    WJ

  20. Cash? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    being sold for $140 million in cash

    Fucking bullshit. Stop referring to checks, wire transfers, etc as "cash", idiots.