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Source: blog.statechannels.org ·
Peer-to-peer micropayments for torrenting. Built on ethereum using state channels.
Wong Joon Ian - @joonian
2 weeks ago
RT @backus: Really cool. Torrents in the browser with p2p payments! https://t.co/h50dz31IC6
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Josh Stark - @0xstark
3 weeks ago
RT @statechannels: Introducing Web3Torrent! 🌱
A browser based torrenting client that supports incentivized peer-to-peer filesharing using micropayments.
Learn more: https://t.co/FH5YflqKZ5 https://t.co/pLx0BDqlyz
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18boro
2 weeks ago
I love the concept, but can anyone enlighten me on how this can work when you currently can download torrents for free? What is the benefit for leechers here?
1
lihorne
L4 - Liam Horne 2 weeks ago
Leechers actually provide parts of the file to other leechers while they download. So it’s possible you could reach equilibrium or even make money while downloading a file (if it’s popular).
Also, many torrents are simply hard to acquire. There is a very long tail of obscure files, like foreign subtitles for lesser known films for example.
One could obtain large collections of obscure files and earn money for seeding these.
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lihorne
L4 - Liam Horne 2 weeks ago
It isn’t our main priority, but we imagine as we develop various pieces of the infrastructure needed to make that perfectly secure this will be on mainnet. There are looming legal questions and some implementation details to guarantee funds will be very hard to lose (i.e., due to software bugs, not security flaws).
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WiseAcanthisitta5
2 weeks ago
This is quite lit although tbh I have been wondering why crypto never took off in the torrenting world apart for payments. I have seen some of the private communities take it for seedbox payments and membership access but that's about it. I am not sure how this will compare against other file storage products like say arweave or filecoin either. Just the fact that this is possible is a big deal. Maybe there's an opportunity for micro-streaming services like Onlyfans to consider using this
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lihorne
L4 - Liam Horne 2 weeks ago
Filecoin is more about ensuring an incentive for the existence of some piece of data in general and is heavily optimized for that. This project does introduce a similar incentive, but is more focused on the actual _retrieval_ process (i.e., via micropayments). I think they go hand in hand.
I'm considering extending Web3Torrent to integrate with Filecoin and IPFS at [HackFS](http://hackfs.com/) in July actually.
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WiseAcanthisitta5
2 weeks ago
Thanks for the added context mate. Deeply appreciate it. This is one part I have no visibility on. Will do my research and keep an eye on your posts to learn more :)
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rBitcoinMod
2 weeks ago
Your submission has been flagged for removal because it is considered off topic for the Bitcoin subreddit.
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anon517
2 weeks ago
ETH is a scam.
The owners forked just to steal money from a dude.
You can't even run a ETH node.
It's centralized trash.
1
UltravioletClearance
2 weeks ago
I just automatically assume anything with crypto in its name is a pump and dump scheme. Blockchain and crypto has been a thing for almost a decade and to date there hasn't been a single "x, but with crypto" or "x, but with blockchain" that hasn't been a giant scam to enrich the early adopters.
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igadjeed
2 weeks ago
> pump and dump scheme
Yes
The crypto ICO boom died out in 2018, has been replaced by Ethereum "smart contracts", marketed as special purpose, single use-case tokens. The token supposedly derives its value from the use case, returning a windfall for the promoter
Web3Torrent is just another example of this
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catvllvs
2 weeks ago
[And what's left is just people betting against each other](https://cointelegraph.com/news/90-of-bitcoin-usage-is-speculation-10-transactions-says-luno-ceo)
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Electron_Microscope
2 weeks ago
I am always concerned that these seeding "for profit" apps would move me the from torrenting for self group, who have practically zero chance of civil liability where I am, right into the "organised crime network" group, who are doing it for the money and are therefore criminals subject to criminal penalties.
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2 weeks ago
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qznc_bot2
2 weeks ago
There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.
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yoavm -
@yoavm
2 weeks ago
"Torrenting has an incentivization problem. There is sometimes a real lack of incentive to seed a file, especially for obscure files where you may only find a single digit number of people that have it. Adding monetary incentives to the existing torrenting structure should prove to be extremely interesting."
In my opinion, if torrenting meant one needs to pay for download, we would never have heard about torrents. This might give people more incentive to seed, but I'd never use it for what I use torrents - get stuff for free or reduce the load of FOSS servers.
To me it's the usual crypto thing - very cool from a technological perspective, not useful in real life.
edit: typos
saurik -
@saurik
2 weeks ago
I honestly haven't spent much time looking into "virtual state channels", but I guess, as someone from Orchid, where we have been tackling this kind of problem in what I've always felt was a much simpler and "more straightforward" way than needing a full "layer 2" network--we are using "probabilistic nanopayments", which is a concept that goes back to the 90s and thereby doesn't have a lot of "crypto" context associated with it, but even that always felt like a feature ;P) that allows for amortized on-chain settlement in a fully peer-to-peer/distributed way (with no federated network of channel "hubs")--I'm really curious to know if anyone has tried to compare/contrast the techniques. (I'd then offer to help doing an integration of our system, which we've had in production for a bit now as part of an app that looks a bit like a pay-by-the-usage VPN market, into Web3Torrent, but I can't tell if the background goal here is to examine all solutions in an attempt to make Ethereum more usable, or if the effort is to narrowly focus on this specific vision of state channels, at which point that would clearly be an awkward interaction at best ;P.)
tomphoolery -
@tomphoolery
2 weeks ago
> Users can upload files and begin seeding to earn small, incremental, amounts of money from anyone that downloads from them.
How do you know that the user uploading the file actually owns the rights to distribute the file? Wouldn't this just incentivize those with the infrastructure (e.g., money/bandwidth) to take over the market and suddenly get paid for sharing others' content?
The idea of "let's combine a distributed filesharing system with a distributed currency" is completely sound, and one that I've worked on in the past. But this is a totally backwards way of approaching the problem. You have no way of actually paying the content creators, just the content hosts. It's just more of the same, and at least with Spotify I get some neat analytical tools. But this just seems like it's designed to help the people who run topsites, not the people who actually make the content and NEED the money.
Thumbs down until you figure out the problem of rights management through your protocol.
homakov -
@homakov
2 weeks ago
I can routinely download any torrent in the world on top speed... What problem does it solve?
Torrents, as a poor choice for the "killer app", aside, state channels are a curious technology but most traditional implementations [fully pre-collateralized channels] have a design flaw where no one wants to put money to the end user, while happily accepting inward capacity from the senders. Haven't looked into this specific implementation, i wonder if it has a fix for this. "Virtual channels" sound relevant here.
neiman -
@neiman
2 weeks ago
Like other people here, I think it's technologically interesting. Also, like many others, I don't see any great practical use-cases for this right now.
However, "if you build it they will come". I'm excited to see what will the creative minds of the internet do with this technology once it exists.
miguelmota -
@miguelmota
2 weeks ago
Web3Torrent FAQ: https://www.notion.so/web3Torrent-FAQ-9f384d9dbadc4828aa81e1...
typingmonkey -
@typingmonkey
2 weeks ago
Can one state channel be used to pay multiple seeders?
Or do I need to create a budget for each seeder I want to interact with?
Proven -
@Proven
2 weeks ago
The inconvenience of having to open a KYC'd crypto exchange account to buy crypto and use it is way worse than finding a free torrent to download.
Not to mention the difference between paying for pirated content (or worse, selling it) and doing it for free.
Congratulations on reinventing a bad solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
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