BitTorrent Inc. is gaining support for cryptocurrencies as the firm today announced a new token that can be used to speed up downloads.

Called the BitTorrent Token, the token runs on the TRON protocol. That’s a blockchain platform designed by the TRON Foundation that competes directly with Ethereum as a platform of choice for cryptocurrencies.

TRON itself acquired BitTorrent in June for a figure believed to be about $140 million sparking an exodus of employees from the company.

The gist of the idea is to encourage more file-sharing by giving creators and others rewards for sharing files and in some cases offering them to other users for direct download.

“The new token… will enable users to exchange tokens to improve network speed,” the company said on Medium. “By providing users with the ability to use BTT tokens for faster downloads, the company aims to accelerate the overall speed of torrents.”

The token will be issued by the BitTorrent Foundation in conjunction with Binance Launchpad and will only be available to non-U.S. customers, presumably due to regulatory issues surrounding initial coin offerings and similar token offerings in the country.

Initial support will be offered by the UTorrrent Classic client with the client still being 100 percent compatible with other clients that support the BitTorrent protocol — that is, it will still play nicely with other clients that don’t support tokens.

Users also have the option to opt out of the cryptocurrency option should they so desire.

How much demand there will be for BTT is yet to be seen, but it is in effect the first announced major token raise of the year. The model is somewhat different particularly given that BTT has a clear use case from day one, but whether interest will be high after the massacre on markets in 2018 is another question.

Image: BitTorrent