Programmer Bram Cohen designed the protocol in April 2001 and released a first implementation of the BitTorrent client on 2 July 2001.

Version 4.20 of the client was dubbed Allegro by BitTorrent Inc., in reference to protocol extensions developed by the company to accelerate download performance and ISP manageability.

BitTorrent has several statistical, tabular and graphical views that allow a user to see what events are happening in the background.

It also intermediates peering between itself, source file servers ("trackers") and other clients, thereby yielding distribution efficiencies.

[11] Company President Ashwin Navin launched the product claiming that "Implementing BitTorrent DNA on top of legacy infrastructure has the profound impact of allowing our customers to deliver a better user experience, higher quality video, faster software downloads, all with the security and reliability of a managed service.

"[13] Navin in a podcast interview claimed that he attempted to sell BitTorrent DNA in January 2005.

That provided the company enough public validation to finally launch BitTorrent DNA two and half years later.

[15][16] As of May 2009, the Asus support website is using BitTorrent DNA as an additional download method of their larger files in addition to their multiple somewhat internationally distributed HTTP servers and content delivery mirrors and other redirection facilities Asus has been known to rely in the present and past for their data delivery needs.

Currently, a separate "P2P" icon is being presented for the DNA style downloads next to the "Global" and "Chinese" located servers as an example.