While the Theta Network is currently primarily used for video-on-demand services and other entertainment-related applications, the team’s long-term goal is for it to act as a decentralised, end-to-end protocol for processing and delivering all kinds of data, including operating systems, app updates, and other kinds of web content.
With the impending introduction of Theta’s mainnet version 3.0, the team is steadily advancing toward this objective. By tokenizing internet bandwidth and availability, or “Uptime Mining,” this enhanced platform will incorporate TFUEL staking and burning. Users will be able to stake TFUEL coins in their Edge Nodes to upgrade them to Elite Edge Nodes, which will allow them to participate in this new resource-sharing system and receive more rewards. Theta will be able to advance toward being a more universally useable, self-sustaining content-delivery platform by improving control over the scarcity of their TFUEL and developing new strategies to encourage user participation.
What Is Theta Network?
Theta’s video-streaming services rely on a distributed network of users who voluntarily contribute their unused bandwidth and computing resources to run the Theta platform in exchange for Theta Fuel coin rewards, unlike the majority of centralised video delivery platforms that occasionally experience bottlenecks within content-delivery pipelines.
By sharing videos with other users through Edgecast, Theta Network’s decentralised tool for content distribution and transcription, Theta users can receive Theta token rewards (dApp). In order to fuel its expanding network of entertainment-oriented services, which are primarily focused on esports, music, TV, movies, education, and enterprise conferencing, Theta has developed a dependable, user-driven solution.
From 2020 through 2027, the worldwide video-streaming market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.4%, and the Theta team has identified numerous methods to provide real end-user value in this quickly expanding business. Users of Theta Network have complete access to a global infrastructure that specialises in the efficient and unfettered distribution of video content and data. Tens of thousands of nodes fuel Theta Network, making it more resilient to potential content delivery outages and problems with digital last-mile distribution.
Significant Real-World Adoption
Theta Labs created Theta Network, which has a talented staff of media and entertainment experts situated in Silicon Valley and Asia. The platform also has the support of numerous significant businesses, like Sony, Samsung, and CAA; traditional venture capital organisations, such DCM and Sierra Ventures Fund; and institutional investors with a focus on blockchain, like Node Capital and DHVC. Theta has also been successful in securing a number of well-known advisors, including Justin Kan and Steve Chen, who jointly founded Twitch and YouTube.
Theta has launched a wide range of strategic collaborations that provide audiences all around the world with immediate and long-lasting value by utilising its amazing network and internal resources. Theta’s adoption has been aided particularly by Samsung, and Theta.tv, the platform’s primary esports streaming dApp, will be included in upcoming Galaxy S20 devices sold to the U.S., increasing Theta’s potential user base by 75 million. Theta Network has also been collaborating with Samsung’s Visual Display division to assist integrate its smart TV portfolio with Theta Network’s content-streaming services.
Theta has collaborated with other blockchain initiatives to broaden understanding and adoption. Theta Network served as the official sponsor of “The Battle of Asia 2020,” Binance’s top international esports competition. In addition to integrating its exchange token, Binance Coin (BNB), into a specially created Theta video player with interactive chat features, Binance intends to webcast all upcoming esports matches through Binance.com and Theta.tv. Additionally, Theta and Gumi Cryptos have teamed together to live-stream important cryptocurrency conferences including Consensus and the Crypto Asia Summit in Japan.
How Does Theta Network Work?
Theta was initially released as an ERC-20 token, however in March 2019, after a $20 million USD private token sale in 2017, the project announced its own mainnet blockchain. Even though Theta is now a stand-alone project, it continues to be ERC-20 compliant, allowing it to benefit from Ethereum’s enormous user base and network advantages while implementing its own patented technology to increase end-user experience and content delivery.
Theta Network uses a modified Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism called Multi-Level Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT), which is quicker and more resource-efficient than conventional Proof-of-Work (PoW) networks since it accelerates approvals by using a limited subset of nodes. The “Guardian Pool,” a far bigger collection of nodes responsible for fully validating transactions and adding them to Theta’s blockchain ledger, receives transactions from the smaller subset of 10–20 nodes known as the “Validator Committee,” which first approves them. Throughput, consistency, and decentralisation are all successfully balanced by this architecture.
The following three fundamental aspects enable Theta Network’s primary data-storage and transport capabilities:
Off-Chain Micropayments Pool:
For micropayments, Theta has developed an off-chain pool to simplify the network’s essential functions. In this approach, partial signatures from surrounding nodes are combined by a group of Guardian Nodes before being shared with the rest of the network as part of an aggregated signature gossip scheme. This minimises the resources required to carry out these communications while enabling the signature sharing of each node to reach other participating nodes rapidly. Off-chain transactions enable any user to withdraw, which frees up more node processing power for the network’s essential data storage, transcription, and delivery functions.
Edge Nodes:
The Theta Network also makes use of Edge Nodes, which are hosted by members of the Theta community, in addition to Validator and Guardian Nodes. Edge Nodes, which were introduced with the launch of Theta’s 2.0 mainnet, enable users to transcode and relay video material as well as share unused bandwidth and processing capacity throughout the network without the necessity of centralised servers. The community-driven core of Theta’s Edgecast technology, which supports the network’s peer-to-peer streaming dApps, is this Edge Node network. Around the world, there were more than 7,000 Edge Nodes as of the beginning of 2021. Operators of Edge Nodes are rewarded with tokens for their contributions to the Theta ecosystem for global content distribution.
Theta Token Minter:
By adding support for flexible Turing-complete smart contract implementation in late 2020, Theta unlocked a vast array of additional dApp functionalities and use cases. Theta Labs introduced the Theta Token Minter, which enables anybody to issue new TNT-20 tokens on the Theta blockchain without prior knowledge of smart contracts, to enable users to take use of these new capabilities. The Token Minter will automatically mint new tokens once users enter their intended token name, ticker symbol, and supply specifications. Numerous new uses and assets for the Theta platform are made possible by the fact that these tokens can be created without technical knowledge and programmed to have either a permanently fixed or variable supply.
Theta Network is fundamentally an open-source protocol that enables the development of dApps on top of its infrastructure. Theta’s network operations are made possible through a dual-coin model:
Theta Coin (THETA)
The governance of the Theta protocol is handled by the THETA coin. Users that want to contribute to the creation of new blocks and take part in the governance of the protocol can stake THETA to act as a Validator or Guardian Node. The total supply of THETA coins is fixed at 1 billion and is constant.
TFUEL Coin
Theta Fuel (TFUEL), the currency of Theta Network, functions similarly to Ethereum’s gas. To compensate Edge Node relayers for sharing unique material, to rebroadcast existing video streams to other users, and to engage with smart contracts on the Theta Network, TFUEL tokens are utilised for on-chain transactions. The original number of TFUEL coins was set at 5 billion at the time of Theta’s mainnet debut, and it grows yearly at a constant rate of 5%.
The official Theta Wallet software offers secure storage for THETA, TFUEL, and TNT-20 tokens from Theta Network. It is readily compatible with hardware wallets like Ledger and Trezor and is accessible on both Android and iOS. Additionally, users have the option of using Theta’s desktop wallet. In addition, Theta Labs announced a Chrome wallet extension in late 2020. Theta Explorer is another tool that users can use to view blocks, addresses, and on-chain transactions on the Theta blockchain.
