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BitTorrent Loses Recent CEO, Adds Crypto-Currency To uTorrent (variety.com)

Posted by msmash on from the meanwhile-in-the-P2P-world dept.

Longtime BitTorrent executive and recent CEO Rogelio Choy left the company just 6 months after its acquisition by blockchain entrepreneur Justin Sun. Coincidentally, Choy's departure comes just as BitTorrent is doubling down on blockchain tech: The company announced Thursday that it is adding a crypto-currency to its popular uTorrent client.

From a report: Choy had been BitTorrent's chief operating officer from 2012 to 2015. After a 2-year stint at an on on-demand startup, he rejoined the company in 2017 as its CEO. His departure was confirmed by a company spokesperson Thursday, who said that he "decided to pursue other opportunities." One possible point of contention is BitTorrent's increased focus on crypto-currencies: The company announced Thursday that it was adding a crypto token to its popular uTorrent Windows client. The token will initially allow uTorrent users to achieve faster download speeds. The exact reasons for his departure are unknown at this time, but a source close to the company suggested that there had been disagreements about the direction of the company.

58 comments

  1. Shitcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dunning-Kruggerrand
    Autism kroners

    1. Re:Shitcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am seriously thinking about also adding bitcoins to my YouTube channel to further diversify my revenue streams.
      --
      Rocketman - Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan - William Shatner Trailer

    2. Re: Shitcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, we get it. You come up with a thinly-veiled reason to mention "your" YouTube channel on every single article. Give it a rest, grow your audience organically and they might stick around. This tactic is only good for cheap views.

    3. Re: Shitcoin by johnsie · · Score: 1

      Barbra Streisand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  2. Could be big. by NFN_NLN · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If the intent is to have leechers send microtransactions to seeders this could be big news. Seeders dropping off is the Achilles heel of peer-to-peer file sharing.

    1. Re:Could be big. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What an irony that a so-called "scamcoin" could actually have real world usage, integrated into various internet services, before the mainstream "real" coins. lol.

    2. Re: Could be big. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I doubt it was the original intent but there is something there. Or there is no there there

    3. Re:Could be big. by Myself · · Score: 0

      Yeah, this actually seems like one of the few applications that's really been yearning for an anonymous microtransaction, aka cryptocurrency, solution.

      The Althea Wireless Mesh does something similar. If you run an AP or backhaul link that handles a lot of traffic, you get paid in microtransactions by the folks whose traffic you're handling. So you have incentive to make your signal and placement as good as possible.

      There will also, presumably, be bad actors who realize they can get more reward if they assail the competition, so we'll have to see how that shakes out.

    4. Re:Could be big. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, that's a weakness of Bittorrent, where every .torrent has it's own swarm and files can't be just shared and identified by a single hash like with older P2P software.

      Anyway there's the Tribler project, which has a decentralized search engine built on top of a torrent client and recently added it's own blockchain to keep track of bandwidth shared between peers and eventually trade it for seeding

    5. Re:Could be big. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Swarm squatters have zero fucks to make one hop. Long as they can say "We had ISPs send 10,000 letters!" the studio pays up, thinking they're totally solving piracy*, and signs off on another year of Tiger Repellant.

      *even if the suit knows better, he gets to proudly report Shit Done to the c-level who heard he's losing "potential billions" to Those Darn Pirates.

      Consider the irony. The billions narrative has gotten so absurd, the industry is burning cash to chase it. Why yes I will start a monitoring service, they're giving away money for theater.

      If it's "genuinely illicit activity", yeah, using nothing but a VPN is asking for it. Duh. If you're going full black to download Star Wars, well, your time is yours to waste.

    6. Re:Could be big. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That last part really highlights that you don't know what you're talking about.

  3. qBittorrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    https://www.qbittorrent.org/

    "The qBittorrent project aims to provide an open-source software alternative to ÂTorrent"

    Works better for me. Ignore currency miner appplications wearing the skin of well known products, and use community-focued open source tools wherever you can.

    1. Re:qBittorrent by thewolfkin · · Score: 1

      https://www.qbittorrent.org/

      "The qBittorrent project aims to provide an open-source software alternative to ÂTorrent"

      Works better for me. Ignore currency miner appplications wearing the skin of well known products, and use community-focued open source tools wherever you can.

      ugh.. oh man but I prefer the uTorrent UI so much. I've tried so many alternative BT applications and they all suck at having a tight UI except for utorrent even with the bloody ads that for whatever reason pimp my utorrent isn't removing anymore.

      --
      Just another second banana
    2. Re:qBittorrent by Kjella · · Score: 1

      ugh.. oh man but I prefer the uTorrent UI so much. I've tried so many alternative BT applications and they all suck at having a tight UI except for utorrent even with the bloody ads that for whatever reason pimp my utorrent isn't removing anymore.

      I see the qBittorrent UI about two seconds every time I add a torrent file and five seconds when I launch a finished file. Why do you spend enough time with it to care?

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:qBittorrent by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 0

      I switched to qBittorrent after uTorrent started including ads and malware. It hasn't let me down.

    4. Re: qBittorrent by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Mine misteryously stopped working a couple years back and started throwing some python errors. I reinstalled it a few weeks ago thinking a newer version might have resolved the problem ... and it's still throwing the same damn errors. Would love to try it again but it just won't work, and support is nonexistent.

    5. Re: qBittorrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1) Check your firewall settings. Sounds like something is blocked. Could it be your anti-malware software too flagging it?
      2) Uninstall fully. Reinstall (if you really want to see what is installed, use Revo Uninstaller or similar monitoring software) to see what and where files are installed. If there is any rogue files on the computer, then Revo will find them and you can manually uninstall those files.
      3) Now fully reinstall and try again.
      4) Do you have a system backup of your hard drive you can revert to to test? Macrium Reflect, Acronis True Image, etc? I'd highly recommend you doing this anyhow as it will save your butt more times than you know it.

    6. Re:qBittorrent by thewolfkin · · Score: 1

      ugh.. oh man but I prefer the uTorrent UI so much. I've tried so many alternative BT applications and they all suck at having a tight UI except for utorrent even with the bloody ads that for whatever reason pimp my utorrent isn't removing anymore.

      I see the qBittorrent UI about two seconds every time I add a torrent file and five seconds when I launch a finished file. Why do you spend enough time with it to care?

      because I do things like actually USE my bittorrent client. I sometimes download mega packs and priorotize or deprioritize. I use the pop up download viewer so I can keep track of what's going on with a download when I'm not live on the client. Yeah maybe if you torrent once a month it might not matter to you but most of us need more interaction than that. Honestly if you need so little interaction you might be better off with something like Transmission which has a poorish user interface when you're working with a lot of torrents but it's perfect for light use

      --
      Just another second banana
  4. This is not the first time by Ecuador · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is not the first time utorrent has "adopted" crypto-coin tech. They are known to bundle Litecoin miners with their torrent client and install it covertly, something that has forced most self-respecting torrent communities to ban utorrent (at least versions after 2.2.1).

    --
    Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
    1. Re:This is not the first time by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      Deluge/Deluged is still better.

  5. Great idea...not by hAckz0r · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I don't think for a moment that people will just be buying "bandwidth" with this.

    Now when you download somebody's digital life works, or other intellectual property, in the form of torrented movies or games, etc. some other unknown third party can directly profit by making it available to you for a little bitcoin? You used to get all this stuff for free, but now there are profit motives involved as well. Who would have thought that some third-party person would eventually learn how to directly profit off of someone else's digital demise. The black market is going to eat this up. All it takes is a little free money to screw things up royally for everyone.

    1. Re:Great idea...not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would also think this makes who seeds traceable - and far more liable - since they are now profiting from it.

      I'm glad I haven't used utorrent in years...

    2. Re:Great idea...not by Zocalo · · Score: 1

      Now when you download somebody's digital life works, or other intellectual property, in the form of torrented movies or games, etc. some other unknown third party can directly profit by making it available to you for a little bitcoin?

      I think you missed the part about the utility of having your torrenting of somebody's digital life works, or other IP, permanently recorded in a blockchain to the MPAA, RIAA, and their like. Sure, if you want that *NIX ISO or some Creative Commons a little quicker then perhaps, but anyone with a clue who wants to commit a little copyright infringement is going to avoid this - and, if they're paranoid enough, the client too - like the plague.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    3. Re:Great idea...not by Kjella · · Score: 1

      I don't think for a moment that people will just be buying "bandwidth" with this.

      This is already the business model of most premium file sharing hosts. You get very slow/limited download for free, allegedly you pay for bandwidth. Those who provide premium links that drive a lot of traffic get kickbacks. Guess what most popular links are? This looks like the same principle just with less desirable protocols and less plausible deniability.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:Great idea...not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the mid 1990's my geeky friends used a service that distributed a catalogue on floppy disk and sent out burned CDR's of warez in return for cash in the mail. Gold-top green-dye CDR's that became unreadable after a couple of years.

    5. Re:Great idea...not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In those cases you're paying the *company*, you know the file share provider themselves. The ones paying for the data centers and all the bandwidth.

      This is totally different. What, is utorrent going to arbitrarily slow down ALL traffic if you don't buy a token? They're telling you that tokens must be bought to get bandwidth off your peers. The ones who are all supposed to be sharing amongst each other. So this is some convoluted way of bribing seeders to bump their bandwidth to you. Why would you do that when you could just use any other torrent client on the planet and say fuck utorrent users altogether?

    6. Re:Great idea...not by Kjella · · Score: 1

      What, is utorrent going to arbitrarily slow down ALL traffic if you don't buy a token? (...) So this is some convoluted way of bribing seeders to bump their bandwidth to you. Why would you do that when you could just use any other torrent client on the planet and say fuck utorrent users altogether?

      Because those "other torrent client" seeders haven't got any reason to stick around so the torrent is quickly abandoned or left incomplete if it's not very popular. I assume the theory here is to create users seeding lots of torrents at very, very low speeds fishing for crypto currency. The positive side is that it could keep a lot more "long tail" torrents alive, the negative side is that uTorrent users could end up hoarding bandwidth for coin rather than seed for free.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    7. Re:Great idea...not by Falos · · Score: 1

      If the coin is arbitrarily exchanged, sure.

      If the coin is redeemed only through seed/leech mechanisms/priority/whatever, you might as well have a black market for internet points.

      Well, okay, technically you can buy socnet likes and shit, but you get my point.

  6. Re:lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Creimertard. Delete thread.

  7. Tribbler anonymous bittorrent with blockchain rep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tribler has done something similar for a while.

    It has onion routing for anonymity and keeps score of how much data transfer you contribute with a blockchain.

    For many people it is not worth the hassle compared to the alternatives such as paying a few dollars for freeleech on a private torrent site where there are lots of people with seedboxes trying to keep their ratio up and it is very rare for users to get DMCA notices. Or even paying for binary usenet.

    I'm not convinced that the overhead of a blockchain is worth it for filesharing, things like I2P anonymous torrents, where nobody gets a DMCA complaint, work fairly well with it.

  8. ...and off the fuck it goes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    uTorrent uninstalled.

  9. Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by o_ferguson · · Score: 1

    You can't even set it to leach at 1k upload max. Just use Bittorrent - you know, the actual bittorrent software. uTorrent is a fucking joke already.

    --
    - In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
    1. Re:Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      bittorrent is what people call the technology, so don't expect people to even know you're talking about somebody's Brandybrand(TM). They should choose a new brand, one that is whimsical instead of functional. That's true even if their old brand was originally whimsical before it became functional.

      And in any case, deluge is way better.

    2. Re:Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by o_ferguson · · Score: 1

      No deluge throttles your D/L if you throttle your U/L. I use Deluge when I'm seeding something, but not as my regular leacher.

      --
      - In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
    3. Re:Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      I have never had this happen ever. I think you are either mistaken, or your ISP is fucking you. Try full stream encryption.

    4. Re:Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by o_ferguson · · Score: 1

      Whatever dude idgaf it did it for me and Bittorrent's client doesn't. I have no need to test it further.

      --
      - In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
    5. Re:Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      So, your ISP throttles torrents, you blame torrent client... proceed to use torrent client that forces ads and now is going to make you pay for bandwidth. lol have fun.

    6. Re:Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by o_ferguson · · Score: 1

      No, my ISP doesn't throttle shit and I don't pay per use for bandwidth. I used the software you are dick-riding. I saw the results it produced, and they were inferior. Please fuck off.

      --
      - In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
    7. Re:Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      Wow don't cry about it. I simply said you're mistaken as I said I have multiple torrents seeding with upload limits set. Still max my connection(100mbit) using deluged As I type this. So you get mad and throw a fit because you're wrong. I bet you have a lot of friemds..

    8. Re:Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      No deluge throttles your D/L if you throttle your U/L. I use Deluge when I'm seeding something, but not as my regular leacher.

      Not correct. Many clients show preference for other clients that are actively uploading. If you don't even upload while you download then you're not a full participant in the swarm. Each client limits the number of other nodes that it connects to. Strong preference is of course given to clients that are available to download from.

      For example, if you only connected to clients that were downloading, your own download stay at 0%, and you'd have nothing to share. When you're uploading fast enough to stay in another node's group of connected nodes, then you're both uploading and downloading at the same time, so you're both actively maintaining a spot in each other's connection pool. If you're only downloading, you're only downloading from the original seeder; and that person's client is trying to stay connected to the higher quality nodes that are distributing the data down the tree.

      It is basic and obvious; you have to upload at some minimum speed on a per-node basic for those nodes to notice you exist and to consider you a useful part of the swarm. So turn down the max number of upload slots so that you can give full upload speed to a few nodes at a time, and you'll find those needs keep you in their connection pool more often.

      Deluge gives you complete control over the fine details, you don't have to wonder if it is slowing you down. You just have to learn enough about the technology to figure out how to match the settings to your available resources. You probably only need to turn down the number of upload slots, so you're not spreading your upload bandwidth between too many connections and causing them all to think you're too slow. Even with 10% the upload bandwidth as download, this works really well and you should have no problems. Just make sure that you also have 10% the upload slots as download slots. It also helps in most cases to limit the total number of concurrent connections to under 100; I use 35 total, and 2 upload slots. I have no trouble using all my available download bandwidth with those settings, and my ratio stays really really low, I'm still mostly only leaching. And yet, torrents with low numbers of slow seeders, then my ratio goes up and everybody wins and we get our download.

    9. Re:Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by o_ferguson · · Score: 1

      Jesus fucking christ. Are they paying y'all to pimp Deluge now. Bittorrent, fresh install, load up one torrent from a magnet. Throttle UL's to 1kbps. DL speed stays close to my pipe speed. Same thing with Deluge, my DL drops to about 10kbps tops.

      --
      - In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
    10. Re:Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Look, asshole, do you really get paid to have opinions on the internet?

      If yes, go to "shut up troll." If no, go to "fuck off, why did you think other people do?"

      It is fucking open source. It doesn't benefit if you use it, or don't use it. There is absolutely fucking nothing to shill for unless you're impressed by a number on a screen that increases. If you learned some programming, you could just make your own number display that increments as high as you want.

      You respond to attempts to educate you with details by being a dumb-ass. That's why your DL drops. Fuckin' morons, there is just no shame anymore in being this stupid.

    11. Re:Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by o_ferguson · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, where did I ask to be educated about Deluge? I didn't. I specifically asked a question about uTorrent, which NONE OF YOU ASSHOLES answered.

      --
      - In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
    12. Re:Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      You didn't ask any question. You gave your opinion, other people gave other opinions, then you started whining and lying about deluge.

      You needed education, because you were whining in public about stuff that isn't broken, or even hard, you just didn't know how to do it. And you're being an asshole too, bug that's OK. Being whiny+ignorant+dishonest is a really lame combination.

      Being wrong and not even having asked or listened?! Are you sure you're a nerd? Are you sure you matter?

    13. Re:Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? by o_ferguson · · Score: 1

      Are you fucking illiterate? "Why the fuck does anyone use uTorrent? " It's the headline ON YOUR OWN RESPONSE. Don't tell me I didn't ask a question when I clearly did, you jackanape.

      --
      - In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
  10. Lightning + BitTorrent = wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nobody needs another shitcoin.

    Putting LN with torrents.. wow

  11. Hasn't been worth using in a while by DarkRookie2 · · Score: 1

    Since, what, 1.7? 1.8 maybe.
    I pretty sure that was the last version that didn't have any ads.

    --
    http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
  12. lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seems like a blatant attempt to take advantage of the large install base of uTorrent to have it mine coins under the guise of "makes your downloads better lol". This is the next stage of shitcoins, to make people mine even if they don't really want to or don't really care about it. I suppose that stage has been around since day one but it was more shady, with malware and such.

    Sad thing is, it'll probably work.

    If they don't provide an option to turn this feature off, I'll have to switch torrent clients, which would make me very sad.

    Buy up those coins while they're cheap folks, this one will be interesting and interesting probably means the price will shoot up for a while before everyone stops using uTorrent and it crashes.

    I'll eat crow if there's legitimate tech there to boost downloads but torrents seem to work JUST FINE without that and if whatever it's doing is ANYTHING even remotely close to mining with my goddamn cpu/vga that app is getting shitcanned.

  13. Re:Once by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 1

    Money is involved, people have a reason to get interested and take their cut. Cue death of uTorrent.

    Given the malware they've been bundling in their installers for years, I'm surprised they aren't already dead. I abandoned them over 5 years ago.

  14. This could be interesting by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    The moving of content and payments away from traditional services.
    The artist/creator gets funded away form the politics of banks, CC, membership platforms, social media.
    The user has their own bandwidth move the content globally.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  15. "The token will initially allow uTorrent users to" by guacamole · · Score: 1

    The token will initially allow uTorrent users to achieve faster download speeds.

    WTF does this mean? On a good day, with many peers, the bt client should download fast enough to saturate a typical home broadband connection (in the US at least). Are they now going to make the downloads artificially slower so that people pay for faster downloads?

  16. Re:"The token will initially allow uTorrent users by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

    I've seen large torrents saturate 10gbps datacenter links. IMO it is them saying they're going to throttle downloads otherwise.
    They are at least giving an incentive to throttle your seeds if you don't pay. Which defeats the purpose anyways.. Maybe the R/MIAA have a part in this?

  17. p0wned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I once met Bram Cohen, inventor of BitTorrent, in a San Francisco BDSM club. Now there was one _depressed_ mofo! He never said it directly, but I got the distinct impression from him: BitTorrent got factory p0wned by fedgov a long time ago.

  18. Sad what utorrent has become by iampiti · · Score: 1

    utorrent, another example of great software being turned into crap by greed.
    Thankfully, a bittorrent client isn't something as complex as an office suite so there're plenty of alternatives that're as good or better than utorrent ever was.
    So, if you keep using it it's your fault.

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