EOS & Filecoin creators had acquisition related talks with BitTorrent, before Tron acquired it

In the crypto world, Tron acquiring BitTorrent was one of the biggest news this year. However, Tron wasn’t the only company who had its eyes on the company. Reportedly, a number of other well-known crypto startups tried to acquire the same. Just recently, it was reported that NEO was one of them. Now, CoinDesk reported that not just NEO, the developers of Filecoin also had talks with BitTorrent. The reports also hint that two or more parties were interested in the company, as people acquainted with the negotiations say. In fact, BitTorrent documents as mentioned by CoinDesk also claim that apart from Sun, six other parties were in negotiations around the acquisition. Reportedly, three parties made offers and three others walked away. According to the reports, BitTorrent even approached creator of the EOS protocol, Block.one, to check if it was interested in acquiring the peer-to-peer file-sharing company. In response, Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer told CoinDesk in an email: "They approached us and solicited the organization, but we were not interested." However, ultimately it was Tron founder Justin Sun who got to acquire the company. According to CoinDesk report, when Justin Sun approached BitTorrent's main shareholder, BitTorrent initiated the acquisition negotiations. Post-acquisition, Justin Sun posted a letter on Medium on August 6, sharing the real reason behind the acquisition. Sun wrote, “Contrary to speculation, the main reason for the acquisition isn’t BitTorrent’s more than 100M active users, and it isn’t for an amazing commercial opportunity.” Instead, he said the most important reason for the acquisition was BitTorrent’s committed to one value – “Democratize the Internet”, very similar to TRON’s “Decentralize the Web.” “The fact that our values are in sync is the driving force behind this acquisition,” Sun added, “The Internet was decentralized when it was first created. Since Web 1.0 in the 80s, we believed that Internet services should be built upon an open protocol shared by the web community. Since then, we’ve created open protocol standards like TCP/IP and HTTP. The World Wide Web has become a cornerstone of the entire Information Age and a basic service that we’ve come to depend on.” See also: Tron introduces merchandise; Is it a venture for fund raising? Tron CEO, Justin Sun greets Ledger Blue wallet for assisting Tron [TRX] Image via Shutterstock Join our Telegram group