BitTorrent Courted EOS, Filecoin Crypto Creators Prior to Tron Sale

A number of well-known crypto startups had their eyes on BitTorrent prior to its acquisition by Tron's Justin Sun.

CoinDesk has learned that in addition to Tron and Neo, blockchain governance-focused project Icon and Protocol Labs, the developers of Filecoin, also entered into talks with BitTorrent to explore a purchase.

According to internal documents obtained by CoinDesk, BitTorrent initiated acquisition negotiations when Tron's founder approached BitTorrent's main shareholder, venture capital firm DCM. Specifically, Justin Sun approached David Chao, a BitTorrent board member who controlled the majority of the company's stock, and proposed to purchase DCM's preferred stock in order to gain a controlling stake.

CoinDesk has learned that BitTorrent also approached Block.

Tron has not yet publicly explained why it acquired BitTorrent, though observers have speculated that Sun saw its 100 million users per month as an asset worth having.

Neo Global Capital told CoinDesk that it thought BitTorrent could develop a decentralized file storage protocol that could be useful for decentralized applications within its blockchain ecosystem.

According to people familiar with the matter, Protocol Labs saw value in BitTorrent's user base, while sources with knowledge of Icon's negotiations said the project was intrigued by the potential to build BitTorrent's software into its blockchain.

Neither Protocol Labs nor Icon made BitTorrent an offer, an outcome that sources attributed to concerns regarding copyright infringement issues associated with the protocol, monetization and the actual integration of the technology, and the company's price tag.

BitTorrent and DCM declined a request for comment from CoinDesk.

For Ben Lebeau, the crypto lead at Sandwich Video - one of the most sought-after content production companies in Silicon Valley - it's not difficult to understand why BitTorrent was so desirable.