The BitVM developers proposed a decentralized file hosting protocol called BitStream that incentivizes payment through Bitcoin.

On November 12th, Robin Linus, the project lead of ZeroSync and developer of BitVM, published an article titled "BitStream: Decentralized File Hosting Incentivized by Bitcoin Payments". The article introduced a decentralized file hosting incentive protocol called BitStream, which provides a sustainable alternative solution. For example, a user may only upload a video once and generate a one-time fee, but if the video becomes very popular and is downloaded 100,000 times, the server's bandwidth cost may far exceed the initial upload revenue. BitStream's pay-per-download method provides a solution: it allows servers to charge for each download, ensuring that revenue expands with media popularity and demand, thereby creating a balanced and profitable ecosystem. There is no need to rely on trust or heavyweight cryptography. Clients and servers use optimistic protocols to perform coin atomic swaps for the files. The server responds with a file that is claimed to be correctly encrypted. Clients pay for the decryption key through the Lightning Network. If the file cannot be decrypted correctly, clients can economically punish cheating servers, which provides a strong incentive for servers to act honestly.