Rainberry, Inc.
Rainberry, Inc.,[3] formerly known as BitTorrent, Inc., is an American company responsible for μTorrent and BitTorrent Mainline.[4][5] The company was founded on September 22, 2004 by Bram Cohen and Ashwin Navin. It was successful during the Great Recession under the leadership of CEO Eric Klinker. In 2018, the company was acquired by cryptocurrency startup TRON,[6] and Bram Cohen left the company.[7][8] In March 2022, the SEC charged Rainberry with fraud for selling cryptocurrencies Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT) as unregistered securities.[9]
"Rainberry" redirects here. For the Zayn song, see Rainberry (song).Formerly
BitTorrent, Inc.
Internet software and services
2004
San Francisco, California, United States
Worldwide
- Steve Liu (CEO)[1]
- Ashwin Navin
- Consumer Freeware
- Content Delivery
- Embedded Software
110 (2012)
History[edit]
The company was founded in 2004 by Bram Cohen and Ashwin Navin, and became the inventor of "μtorrent and BitTorrent software and a pioneering San Francisco company in decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing technology."[10] According to the San Francisco Times at its peak, BitTorrent in the early 2010s had up to a quarter billion active monthly users, while its protocol "accounted for virtually half of file-sharing bandwidth on the Internet."[10]
Tron, a cryptocurrency startup, acquired Rainberry in 2018, with Tron later introducing BTT, a BitTorrent cryptocurrency token. The token aimed to help monetize Rainberry's software, which had been free since inception, and made money for the company through ads in the user interface.[10]
In early 2023 Rainberry Inc. closed its San Francisco headquarters in the Financial District and laid off 92 employees.[10] In March 2023, Sun served as CEO of Rainberry, Tron, and Peiwo simultaneously.[11]
In March 2023, the SEC sued Tron founder Justin Sun, the Tron foundation, the BitTorrent Foundation, and Rainberry Inc. over the sale of TRX and BTT tokens, and over the debate as to whether they counted as unregistered crypto asset securities.[12]
Partners[edit]
According to the company's website, BitTorrent Inc. has announced partnerships with many companies, including, for venture capital, Accel Partners and DCM, technology partners ESA Flash Components, NTL:Telewest, Opera Software, and device partners Buffalo Technology, D-Link, I-O Data, Marvell Semiconductors, Netgear, Planex Communications Inc., and QNAP Systems, Inc.[50][51]