WTF is THETA?!
THETA is a decentralized video delivery network run on an open source protocol built to power a decentralized streaming network. Founded in 2017, Theta is a subsidiary of the virtual reality live streaming company, Sliver.tv. Think Disney, but without the hidden messages and centralized structure. Disney owns ABC, ESPN, in addition to a host of native content and products. In the near future, like Disney did through various acquisitions and mergers, THETA will allow for dApps to be built on top of the platform. THETA, and the surrounding dApps hope to enable esports, music, TV/movies, education, enterprise conferencing, peer-to-peer streaming, and more on it’s network.
Strategic corporate investors include Samsung NEXT, Sony Innovation Fund, media investors BDMI Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, CAA Creative Artists Agency, and traditional Silicon Valley VCs including DCM and Sierra Ventures. Additionally, Theta enjoys some major media partnerships. Legacy media giants, such as Lionsgate, Sony, Samsung and Google have signed up as contributors and validators for the Theta network. These enterprise partners serve to validate network transactions on Theta’s proof-of-stake consensus protocol. This impressive network of enterprise partners will also have a role on Theta’s governance council, supporting the implementation of technology planning and network privacy and stability.
In addition to THETA’s impressive partnerships and backers, their team continues to make major strides in legacy spaces as they advance their innovative protocols. Just this year, Theta Labs was granted their 2nd US patent for “Ultra-high Transaction Throughput Micropayments to Support Decentralized Video and Data Delivery.” Having legal protection of their IP might not seem like the “open source” play, but when it comes to ensuring the organization’s viability, it’s a powerful statement.
The THETA Network
Theta is the leading streaming video network powered by blockchain technology. Theta enables existing streaming platforms to drive reduced content delivery costs while end-users are rewarded for sharing their bandwidth.
The THETA network solves various challenges the video streaming industry faces today. Think Netflix is perfect? Think again; much like Facebook, more and more users are becoming the product of Netflix and the curated content is being further focused on it’s users profiles, not creators’ creativity. How does the Theta network rewrite the incentives to create a more healthy, creative, secure content distribution network? Glad you asked!
Theta's platform allows users to earn money by sharing bandwidth and computing resources on a peer-to-peer (P2P) basis. It's fast, secure and extremely cheap to use. Theta’s “Turing-complete smart contract” was enabled on the Theta Mainnet last month. Smart contract functionality is opening up a wealth of new user experiences and new attribution models for dApps built on the THETA network. The next generation THETA blockchain (THETA Mainnet 3.0) is projected to launch in the Spring 2021 and will introduce TFUEL staking and burning tokenomics to the network.
THETA TOKEN
Theta tokens are used as an incentive to encourage individual users to share their redundant memory and bandwidth resources as caching nodes for video streams. This improves the quality of stream delivery and solves the “last-mile” delivery problem, the main bottleneck for traditional stream delivery pipelines, especially for high resolution high bitrate 360° virtual reality (VR) streams. Now, with a critical mass of caching nodes, viewers can pull streams from peer’s nodes, not just one centralized database. What does this mean for you, dear viewer? The impact is significantly reduced bandwidth costs, which is a major concern for video streaming sites. This is all good for content creators, but what about us viewers?
The Theta network streamlines the video delivery process. Via the Theta network, advertisers can target viewers at a lower cost and reward influencers transparently. Theta’s blockchain introduces three novel concepts:
- Reputation Dependent Mining: Theta’s caching nodes play the role of miners in the blockchain. The block reward depends on the reputation score of the caching node that mined the block. To obtain mining rewards, miners spend computation power and relay video streams to viewers. These act as ways to increase their reputation scores and thus mining rewards.
- Global Reputation Consensus: A mechanism for the Theta network to reach consensus on the reputation scores for each node.
- Proof-of-Engagement: A scheme to prove that viewers legitimately consume the video streams, not bots. This accomplishes transparency so advertisers have an accurate basis for viewers to earn Theta tokens when engaging with content.
TOKEN PRICE
The Theta protocol’s native token, THETA, has seen some significant growth recently, hitting new all-time highs and even outperforming Bitcoin’s 2020/21 rally.
THETA rose rapidly in the fourth quarter of 2020 (I mean, what didn’t?!), and broke the $2 level on New Years day 2021. But that was just the beginning of THETA’s trip to the moon. Over the course of the first quarter of 2021, the THETA token price exploded, reaching a high of $8 before pulling back to $7.29. As of the end of the first quarter of 2021, THETA finds itself bouncing between $6 and $8. This meteoric rise represents a 13,842% increase over the course of the last year.
The current market cap is $7,604,532,068, and the trading volume is $299,607,059. Coingecko lists THETA as having the 16th highest market cap in the digital asset space.
While THETA is not listed on Coinbase, it is speculated to be added in the future. If Coinbase lists THETA, 330+ million U.S. citizens will gain access to this asset, which will likely impact the token price (if recent listings are any evidence of future price action).
Most of the trading action can be found on the Binance and Huobi Global exchanges. Theta is by no means an “under dog,” but it is far from enjoying the notoriety it deserves for making so much progress, profits and impact in such a short time interval. If you stream video, advertise and/or have some excess bandwidth, THETA is a protocol you do not want to ignore.
LEARN MORE!
- Peep the Theta Website at: https://www.thetatoken.org/
- Keep an eye on the THETA charts at: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/theta-network
- Learn more about the Theta Network and tokenomics at: https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/assets.thetatoken.org/Theta-white-paper-latest.pdf
- Join their conversation on Twitter: @Theta_Network
Theta 1-click delegated staking now live in the Theta Web Wallet! With this new feature, you can delegate your THETA to stake to community-run Guardian Nodes that have volunteered their nodes for use. You can find all the details in the latest Theta blog:https://t.co/sXWRiypr60
— Theta Network (@Theta_Network) June 4, 2021
