The fact that our peer-to-peer media streaming backbone was already built on the open bittorrent protocol seemed a natural fit for Tron considering their earlier acquisition of the popular BitTorrent and uTorrent software clients for $140 million.
Right on cue, Tron announced the $1,000,000 dApp Developer Contest to “…continue fostering innovations in the blockchain industry (and) empower developers and start-ups to develop Dapps based on TRON protocol.”
Perfect! Or, so we thought at the time.
Right away the program was surrounded by chaos, confusion, and accusations of “irregularities”. Of course, this is crypto so you’ve got to take every opinion and allegation with a healthy bit of skepticism. We thought the noise was just par for the course and ignored it.
Although our MVP submission was passed over for recognition, we got to know members of the business development team at Tron Foundation during the process. We were encouraged enough to continue working on migrating the entire platform from Ethereum to Tron.
This is where the true madness starts.
BUIDL
A couple of months later, we were ready to publicly demo our Tron-based project for the first time. From a technology standpoint, we ended up creating an extension to the bittorrent protocol and called the project “bittorrentX”.
The implications of this technology are massive.
Decentralized YouTube, Netflix, and Spotify with a “crypto-invisible UX” just became a reality. No downloads or plugins for end users…just press Play and you are part of the global decentralized network.
Additionally, the protocol would allow for device-to-device streaming thus opening the door for billions of smartphones, smart TVs, and home media centers to join the network.
Extending decentralized streaming to billions of devices — @butierm
This extension would allow any bittorrent client with an open architecture such as Transmission or Vuze to earn crypto by seeding content directly to the web. These types of clients account for ~70% of the public bittorrent network, dwarfing the “official” clients from Tron’s acquisition.
And, importantly, the extension would not force vendor lock-in the way BTT (“BitTorrent Token”) forces crypto users to run torrent clients from Tron Foundation.
Our thinking was, “We’ve just made the whole network infinitely more useful. Therefore, a rising tide lifts all boats!”
Tron Foundation would not see it this way.
TRUST
We created the BTTX token (“bittorrent eXtension”) on the Tron blockchain as a utility cryptocurrency to reward nodes for seeding. Demand would come from content creators staking tokens to upload content and consumers needing a minimum in their wallet to interact with the network.
At the time, it was possible to create a TRX-10 token (the Tron equivalent to Ethereum ERC-20) on Tronscan, the only Tron block explorer, and immediately start a crowdsale using a native function called “Participate”.
Unfortunately, this power was being abused and exit scams were becoming rampant on Tron.
So, we proactively submitted additional “Token Reputation” information to Tronscan before any token sale took place so we could become verified providers and earn the trust of the community.
TRACTION
All seems to be going well and the buzz about BTTX is spreading as we release our first decentralized video demonstration using the Tron blockchain.
With thousands of video views on Twitter, clearly the demo is getting a great reception from the community with reactions like this:
Just as we are gaining traction, the BitTorrent company makes a BIG announcement about Tron and BitTorrent Token (“BTT”):
“We are developing a range of generalized BTT services, as well as preparing to open up the platform to third-party developers to allow use of the wallet and BTT in their applications.” — BitTorrent Inc.
Since we are a project with the bittorrent protocol at its core, we take the BitTorrent company announcement as a great signal to further integrate with the Tron ecosystem.
But then, after 21 days, the constant stream of our token sales strangely stop cold.
DISAPPEARED?
A couple of days later we get first reports that our BTTX token “disappeared”.
“SO ALL MY $BTTX TOKENS DISAPPEARED WOW GLAD THAT I WENT ALL OUT ON THIS PROJECT”
How can tokens “disappear”? Was this a simple wallet issue? Some corrupt database from an API provider? It just doesn’t make sense.
What happens if you search “bittorrentX” or “BTTX” on Tronscan?
This sets off a couple weeks of frantic communication with numerous support channels: token@tronscan.org, feedback@tronscan.org, trontroubleshooting@gmail.com, token@trx.market (now PoloniDEX), as well as Tronscan and Tronscan Support Telegram groups.
There was never a meaningful response.
A NEW HOPE
We reached out to a very well-known “Tron Influencer” and asked for help with insight into this bizarre problem. He vowed to ask his personal contacts at Tron Foundation for help. After some “informal inquiries”, he suggested we make a new token with a new symbol.
Taking this advice, we put the question to the #TronFam and held a community contest to pick the new symbol.
When we created this new token, BITX, we purposefully did not use the Tronscan “Participate” option. We simply made the token and created our own token sale contract.
The idea was that there would be no possible way anyone could claim we were a scam since the only way to get the token was to buy it directly from our website using our custom crowdsale contract and absolutely nowhere else.
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
Within hours of announcing the new symbol, we got an email from Rainberry Inc (parent corporation to the BitTorrent company).
The letter accuses us of intentionally deceiving customers by making misleading statements such as “makes BitTorrent better” and offers as further proof “…the fact that you are displaying the TRON logo and links on your website.”
Mind you this is all happening as Tron itself is implicated in numerous accusations of fraud. Alleged exit scams like Reyna token are still accessible on Tronscan. There is even a clone token called “Tron (TRX)” which operates freely. Both have positive reputation marks issued by Tronscan.
Yet, our tokens were banned…twice.
The second ban only took three (3) days this time whereas the first ban took twenty-one (21) days. Clearly this was not an automated process.
At this point, we concluded the ban was likely purposeful.
The result of being blacklisted by Tronscan, the only Tron block explorer, meant that any service that uses infrastructure provided by Tron Foundation would no longer show our token…which includes every Tron wallet.
The effect is that our project “disappeared” from the Tron blockchain and became impossible to further develop.
PEACE TALKS
Even though at this point there seems to be clear evidence of direct interference with our project, we still couldn’t really believe it.
Imagine if the Ethereum Foundation wanted to create a stablecoin so they banned USDT or DAI from all Ethereum block explorers. It really is unimaginable.
As a last ditch effort we asked for help from our investors at Digital Finance Group, led by James Wo. DFG is a cornerstone in the Ethereum Classic community as well as a major investor in numerous exchanges including, ironically, Circle (Poloniex).
DFG made an introduction to the top levels of Tron/BitTorrent:
Roy Liu — Head of Business Development, TRON
Justin Knoll — Head of BitTorrent and Project Atlas, TRON
Jonathan Yu — Business Development Manager, TRON
The Tron/BitTorrent team agreed to a conference. They initially seemed excited but before the call asked a lot of technical and strategy questions, particularly how we compare/contrast with various Tron and BitTorrent applications.
Over multiple emails we addressed their exhaustive list, with a simple request in return…
Since we clearly demonstrated a legitimate project to the top management of Tron and BitTorrent, we asked for the Tronscan ban to be lifted.
Finally, we were forced to acknowledge the unthinkable:
Tron knowingly disappeared a legitimate project from the Tron blockchain it felt was competition to a Tron Foundation-backed initiative, BTT (“BitTorrent Token”).
“Behind every successful fortune there is a crime.” — The Godfather
LET’S BUILD A UNICORN 💪💥🦄
It’s easy to forget all of this started just because our team wanted to build something we thought was meaningful.
We believe big centralized streaming platforms are too powerful. Platforms own the relationships (and revenue) between creators and consumers, leaving you as nothing more than the product. The negative economic and social impact of this arrangement is tragically obvious.
But now, everything is changing.
Momentum is moving in favor of content creators and their social networks. POP Network is built to help you take back the power and profits, capitalize on this radical transformation, and unleash a worldwide wave of creativity that was impossible before blockchain technology.
The situation brought our core team closer together and gave us laser-focus as we’ve grown to nearly 20 worldwide contributors. We are pioneering the first Superdelegated Proof-of-Stake blockchain, an improvement on early DPoS chains like Tron. And, another interesting side-effect is happening…
POP Network is turning into a safe-haven for developers and projects that believe we need a means of decentralized content distribution that is not subject to control by one company. During this whole saga, we keep hearing from developers with stories shockingly similar to ours. As we continue building, more and more disaffected rebels are becoming POP Network contributors.
We have no illusions of what insanity this post may unlock.
POP Network has a big fight ahead to fulfill our mission as part of the movement to re-decentralize the internet. So, if you want to join us on the road to becoming the next unicorn blockchain then our community is open.
We may or may not succeed, but one thing should be clear from this story…
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