Neo's Failed $170 Million Bid to Buy BitTorrent Revealed

When Tron founder Justin Sun bought BitTorrent in one of the most talked-about tech acquisitions of the year, it turns out he wasn't even the highest bidder.

What's more, Tron wasn't even the only crypto startup that wanted a piece of the pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing software company, CoinDesk has learned. Based on internal documents and multiple interviews with people close to the deal, CoinDesk is able to reveal Sun's rival in his quest to acquire the influential Silicon Valley startup was one of Tron's top competitors, the $1.5 billion blockchain project Neo.

Through its related venture capital firm, Neo Global Capital (NGC), the project made a much higher offer than Sun, a fact confirmed both by NGC and multiple sources familiar with the deal.

According to Neo Blockchain's head of investment, Weiyu "Wayne" Zhu, and internal BitTorrent documents obtained by CoinDesk, NGC's bid was for $170 million, amounting to $50 million dollars more than Tron founder Justin Sun's $120 million bid for the shares. Nevertheless, Sun's offer eventually succeeded.

Tron did not reply to a request for comment. BitTorrent declined to answer requests as well.

Although first reported in June, Sun announced in July that he had acquired BitTorrent on behalf of Tron, the controversial blockchain project he founded in 2017 after leaving San Francisco startup Ripple. The acquisition marked one of the first times a crypto company had successfully acquired an established web company, leaving Tron investors thrilled (though the project's skeptics were more suspicious).

At the time, observers speculated that Sun bought the company for its user base.

Tron and Neo have also faced off in other ways. Though their explicit goals are different, both projects seek to stake a claim in the already competitive market of creating faster, more scalable blockchains. Likewise, both claim a common competitor – the world's second-largest blockchain ethereum.

Read more here: https://www.coindesk.com/not-just-tron-neos-failed-170-million-bid-to-buy-bittorrent-revealed/