Sun Adds BitTorrent To CoinPayments, But Liquidity Worries Remain
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You can now use BitTorrent Tokens (BTT) to purchase goods and services online, after the tokens were added to a cryptocurrency payments service. But that might not resolve concerns of liquidity issues for the token’s economy further down the line.
BitTorrent, a file sharing service, announced on Thursday that BTT tokens had been successfully integrated as a featured digital asset for the online cryptocurrency payments gateway, CoinPayments. Users will be able to use BTT on CoinPayments as of today, both inside and out of the BitTorrent application.
CoinPayments launched in 2013 and works as a cart plugin. Users shopping at featured merchant website can pay for goods and services with a variety of different cryptocurrencies at the checkout. The processor already accepts more than 1,200 digital assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC) and Tronix (TRX), the native token for TRON.
Merchants featured on CoinPayments include the Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify, which integrated with Request Network (REQ) in June 2018, allowing its merchants to accept cryptocurrencies such as Ether (ETH).
CoinPayments Will Help BitTorrent Liquidity
TRON, which bought BitTorrent last year, will launch the seeding service BitTorrent Speed later this year. The company hopes the new integration will spur holders to use their BTT tokens and create a liquid ecosystem.
“Coming this summer, BitTorrent Speed will be implemented into our popular Windows-based µTorrent Classic client to create a healthier ecosystem and a foundation where content creators can distribute their work directly across the web,” said Sun.
He added: “In advance of this highly anticipated release, we look forward to working with CoinPayments and other partners to make BitTorrent (BTT) liquid in the online marketplace before BTT is fully integrated into our desktop and mobile products.”
The BitTorrent token sale concluded in 15 minutes and raised more than $7M for TRON. But critics on Twitter protested that high buy limits allowed whale investors to take the biggest slices of the pie:
very badly organized #binance $btt ico. server crashed, less than 1000 participants I think 90% them are whales. smells like scam. i am dissapointed @cz_binance That’s ridiculous they need to put a limit on how many tokens an individual can buy. #cryptocurrency #btc $btc $eth
— Sixthof’s Crypto Archive (@SixthSixthof) January 28, 2019
If there’s any truth in this, the CoinPayments integration may have a very limited effect. Many large-volume investors buy only for speculative reasons, not out of a commitment to enhancing the file-sharing system or intentions of using its token.
Many will now wait for the launch of BitTorrent Speed, before selling at a high price. Until then, the BTT market is unlikely to gain any more liquidity.
The author is invested in digital assets, including BTC and ETH, which are mentioned in this article.
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