Toronto-based hip-hop band becomes the first to make BTC via FrostWire

BitTorrent client FrostWire made news late last year when it introduced a plan to enable artists to embed bitcoin payment addresses into their uploads, providing a simple means to pay the artist directly. That functionality was included in the latest FrostWire update, 5.7.1, released yesterday. The payment integration includes support for litecoin, dogecoin and PayPal donations.

The first group to benefit from the FrostWire update appears to be Toronto-based hip-hop band Ain’t No Love, who launched their album Tears of Joy for free on BitTorrent. While the results have been humble thus far (around $80 in BTC donations at the time of this writing), the band seems quite optimistic about the potential.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Ain’t No Love lead singer Saidah Conrad said:

Using Bitcoin has definitely widened our reach to people who don’t necessarily listen to our type of music, but like that we get down with Bitcoin, and started listening to our music, which is a cool thing in itself.”

While bitcoin addresses in torrents, both legal and pirate, are nothing new, the model of officially using a BitTorrent client as a legitimate distribution mechanism is a fascinating new experiment.