Frequently Asked Questions

SeedPay is an open payment protocol that lets BitTorrent seeders earn cryptocurrency (USDC) for sharing files, while leechers pay seeders directly for faster downloads and guaranteed availability. It extends the BitTorrent Wire Protocol with payment handshakes and blockchain-verified payment channels.

The free-rider problem. BitTorrent depends on users seeding after downloading, but rational actors have no incentive to do so. Popular torrents survive on altruism; long-tail content dies once initial interest fades. SeedPay provides direct economic incentives for seeding — seeders earn real money for the bandwidth they provide.

SeedPay is at v0.3 Pre-Alpha / RFC stage. This is research software and should not be used in production. V0.3 introduced privacy protections via ephemeral session keys (ECDH), payment channels with streaming micropayments, and a simplified protocol focused on crypto-native users.

The primary target is crypto-native users who value speed, availability, and supporting content creators. Non-crypto users can continue using standard BitTorrent without any changes — SeedPay payments are entirely opt-in.

SeedPay uses unidirectional payment channels. The leecher deposits USDC into an on-chain escrow, then signs off-chain payment checks as data is downloaded. The seeder submits the final check to claim funds when the session ends. Only 2 on-chain transactions are needed per session (open + close) — all intermediate payments happen off-chain.

Seeders set their own prices, but typical pricing is $0.0001–$0.001 per MB. That means a 1 GB file costs roughly $0.10–$1.00. Seeders also define a minimum prepayment (typically $0.01) to open a channel.

Not necessarily. You can seed popular content first to earn USDC from leechers, then spend those earnings on your own downloads. This creates a circular economy — seed 10 GB, earn ~$0.10, download 5 GB, spend ~$0.05, keep the rest.

If the connection drops, the seeder can close the channel with the highest payment check they received. If the seeder disappears, the leecher can force-close the channel after a timeout period (default 24 hours) to recover unspent funds. No money is lost permanently.

Yes. SeedPay is fully opt-in and backward compatible. Non-SeedPay clients continue to work without modification. Standard tit-for-tat seeding remains available. Payments only happen between peers that both support and have enabled SeedPay.

V0.3 uses Ephemeral Session Keys based on Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH). Each session derives a unique Session UUID, and only a SHA-256 hash of it appears on-chain. Blockchain observers cannot link wallet addresses to download activity, peer IDs, or IP addresses. Each session is also unlinkable from previous ones.

For leechers: The maximum loss is the amount deposited in the channel (e.g. $0.01). If the seeder sends no data, the leecher can force-close after timeout to recover funds.

For seeders: $0. The seeder only serves data after verifying the channel on-chain, and stops when payment checks stop arriving.

BitTorrent's built-in piece hash verification catches corrupted data. The leecher verifies piece hashes before signing payment checks, so the seeder only gets paid for valid data. Maximum loss from a corrupted piece is approximately $0.000025.

No. Each payment check is cryptographically signed with Ed25519 and includes a monotonically increasing nonce. Checks are bound to a specific channel ID, so they cannot be replayed across sessions. The smart contract enforces nonce ordering and rejects stale or duplicate checks.

Payment channels require real cryptocurrency deposits and each channel opening costs transaction fees. This makes Sybil attacks economically infeasible — an attacker creating 100 fake seeders would gain roughly $0.0025/day while spending more on transaction fees.

V0.3 targets Solana first (using SPL Token for USDC). The protocol is blockchain-agnostic by design — the ECDH session binding works on any chain. Ethereum/EVM support (with ERC-20 tokens) is planned for future versions.

SeedPay extends the BEP 10 Extension Protocol, which is supported by most modern clients. However, SeedPay V0.3 requires MSE (Message Stream Encryption) for the ECDH key exchange. A SeedPay-enabled client plugin or native implementation is needed — non-SeedPay clients still work normally without payments.

Curve25519 (x25519) for ECDH key exchange, HKDF-SHA256 for session key derivation, SHA-256 for session hashing, and Ed25519 for payment check signatures. All are well-established, widely audited standards with implementations in libsodium, NaCl, and OpenSSL.

USDC is a widely adopted stablecoin with real, stable value. A proprietary token would introduce volatility risk, require liquidity bootstrapping, and add friction. With USDC, earned funds are immediately useful — no exchange step needed. This also avoids the regulatory and perception issues around launching a new token.

BTT uses a centralized ledger with a proprietary token, limited adoption, and doesn't integrate with existing clients. SeedPay is fully decentralized, uses an established stablecoin (USDC), is backward compatible with standard BitTorrent, and is built on open standards with no proprietary infrastructure.