The funny thing is, it was in the HN comments about the source of that story (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10962253) that was revealed that the Fanimatrix torrent was still being seeded.
That's fascinating! I also was still under the impression that the ASCII Matrix was the oldest surviving torrent and even started seeding it, back when I first heard about that story. Great to see such connections being made; that's what the internet is, or should be, all about.