Blockstream Meets BitTorrent: Lightning Micropayments Suggested to CEO Cohen

[Len]

Blockstream CEO Adam Back has said he “suggested” Bitcoin micropayments for BitTorrent as the company hires its ex-chief architect Arvid Norberg.

In a Reddit thread about Norberg joining Blockstream as a software engineer, Back says he had mentioned the idea to BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen “a while back.”

Back revealed the conversation in response to fellow Reddit user u/provoost writing that being able to pay one’s way into bandwidth priority would be “awesome” as a feature.

“[Norberg] might be working on something completely different, but it would be awesome if they added opt-in Lightning payments to torrents,” u/proovost says. “Basically each client could set a price for bandwidth priority.”

Cohen has been an increasingly active force in the cryptocurrency community for some time. In April, he revealed he was working on his own cryptocurrency to address what he called “flaws” in Bitcoin.

As the micropayments idea made its way onto Twitter, entrepreneur Tuur Demeester joined enthusiastic commentators in saying it could be a “huge use case.”

Lightning Network co-founder Elizabeth Stark meanwhile praised Cohen’s participation in the project, describing him as having been “super helpful in thinking through” its protocol.
 

Tuur Demeester @TuurDemeester
BitTorrent clients charging Bitcoin for bandwidth... Could be huge use case. (Blockstream just hired fmr Chief Architect of Bittorrent Inc.)

elizabeth stark @starkness
Bittorrent creator @bramcohen has been super helpful in thinking through the LN protocol and is an advisor to @lightning labs. ⚡️