BitTorrent Acquired by Tron Cryptocurrency for $140 Million USD
Many wonder what will become of the industry leader in peer-to-peer file sharing.
TechCrunch reports that the industry-leading BitTorrent, Inc., the parent company of µTorrent, has been acquired by Justin Sun and his blockchain media and cryptocurrency startup Tron for $140 million USD. This news comes after weeks of speculation around the possible purchase, as shareholders have publicized the official asking price. And while the acquisition is close to being finalized, TC states some shareholders are still disputing the terms, as more than one person claims to have made the introduction between Sun and BitTorrent. Experts don’t believe this will prevent the sale from going through however.
While it’s still unclear how or if BitTorrent’s current business model will change, the company did issue a statement on its website earlier today.
Our attention has been drawn to the news items that have appeared in the past few weeks speculating about a change in BitTorrent’s business model.
We wish to reiterate that BitTorrent has no plans to change what we do or charge for the services we provide. We have no plans to enable mining of cryptocurrency now or in the future.
BitTorrent has been a pioneer of peer-to-peer file sharing and we believe our vision of democratizing the Web by enabling decentralized, resilient access to information remains as relevant as it was when we started.
We reiterate that we are committed to our hundreds of million users worldwide and will continue to invest and innovate in the BitTorrent and uTorrent products.
Stay tuned as the story develops.
For more in the world of tech acquisitions, Google just invested $550 million USD in JD.com to battle its rival Amazon.
