What is Theta Coin? The Complete Guide to Theta Network Project

Can video streaming, similar to Facebook, YouTube, or TikTok live streams today, be distributed in a fully decentralized global manner on a Blockchain Platform? The answer is absolutely yes with Theta Network – a blockchain project that has attracted an impressive list of investors and a global user base.

So, what is Theta Network? What are its functions and highlights? What purposes can the Theta Coin be applied for? Let’s find out in the article below!

1. WHAT IS THETA NETWORK?

Launched to the public in March 2019, Theta (THETA) is a network developed on the blockchain platform, designed for decentralized streaming and video distribution based on peer-to-peer (P2P) technology.

While most centralized video distribution platforms sometimes experience congestion and interruptions during content delivery, Theta’s streaming services operate on a distributed network. This network is formed by voluntary users who contribute their spare bandwidth and computing resources to run the Theta platform, in return receiving rewards in the form of Theta Fuel (TFUEL) coins. Centralized video distribution occurs as follows:

Theta users can earn Theta coin rewards by sharing videos with other users through Edgecast, Theta Network’s decentralized content transcription and distribution application (dApp). Through this, Theta has established a reliable and user-focused method to operate an ecosystem of growing entertainment services – most of which focus on areas such as esports, music, television, film, education, and corporate conferences.

The global video-streaming industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.4% from 2020 to 2027, and the Theta development team has identified multiple ways to deliver tangible value to end-users in this rapidly expanding field.

More specifically, Theta Network users enjoy full access to a global infrastructure focused on efficient, unlimited video content and data distribution. Since Theta Network is operated by tens of thousands of nodes, the network is better equipped to resist potential disruptions in content delivery and end-stage digital issues.

2. THETA NETWORK’S SOLUTION

A new native blockchain operated by users for decentralized peer-to-peer video distribution.

2.1. Theta Fuel (TFUEL) Rewards for Viewers

By sharing excess bandwidth and resources, viewers earn rewards by participating in the network.

2.2. Higher Quality, Smoother Streaming

A decentralized peer-to-peer network enables efficient global streaming delivery.

2.3. Reduced Video Stream Distribution Costs

Video platforms no longer need to build expensive infrastructure, allowing more innovation with unique business models.

Ultimately, users benefit by sharing their bandwidth and building community. All content creators and platforms earn more with lower streaming costs.

3. HOW DOES THETA NETWORK WORK?

While Theta was initially launched as an ERC-20 token, the project announced its own mainnet blockchain in March 2019, following a private sale that raised $20 million in 2017. Although Theta is now an independent project, it still complies with the ERC-20 standard, meaning Theta can leverage Ethereum’s huge user base and network benefits, while implementing proprietary technologies to improve online content delivery and enhance end-user experience.

Theta Network operates on a modified Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism called Multi-Level Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT), which uses a small group of nodes to speed up approvals and save resources compared to traditional Proof-of-Work (PoW).

Specifically, this setup relies on a smaller subset of 10-20 nodes, called the Validator Committee, to initially approve a transaction before passing it to the Guardian Pool — a much larger group of nodes responsible for fully validating transactions and adding them to Theta’s blockchain ledger. This design achieves a healthy balance between transaction throughput, consistency, and decentralization.

From there, Theta Network’s core data distribution and storage capabilities are enabled through three main features:

Offline micropayment pooling

Theta has created an off-chain micropayment pool to streamline the core operations of the network. In this system, a set of Guardian Nodes compile partial signatures from their neighboring nodes before aggregating these signatures with the rest of the network.

This allows each node’s signature to be quickly shared with other participating nodes while minimizing the resources required to make these connections. As a result, any user can withdraw funds using off-chain transactions, saving much more node processing power for the network’s core data storage, encryption, and distribution purposes.

Edge Nodes

In addition to Validator and Guardian Nodes, Theta Network also uses Edge Nodes, which are hosted by members of the Theta community. Introduced in Theta’s mainnet 2.0 launch, Edge Nodes enable users to transcode and relay video content as well as share excess bandwidth and processing power across the network without centralized servers.

This Edge Node network forms the community-driven core of Theta’s Edgecast platform, laying the foundation for the network’s decentralized peer-to-peer streaming applications. As of early 2021, there were over 7,000 Edge Nodes worldwide. Edge Node operators receive token rewards in exchange for contributing to Theta’s global content-sharing ecosystem.

Theta Token Minter

At the end of 2020, Theta added support for flexible Turing-complete smart contract deployment, unlocking new potential use cases and dApp features. To empower users to leverage these new capabilities, Theta Labs launched the Theta Token Minter, allowing anyone to create new TNT-20 tokens on the Theta blockchain without needing a smart contract.

Specifically, users simply enter their desired token name, ticker symbol, and new token supply parameters, and the Token Minter will automatically mint the new tokens. The ability to create tokens without technical expertise, with either fixed or adjustable supplies, opens the door to a wide range of new applications and assets on the Theta blockchain.

At its core, Theta Network is an open-source protocol that allows dApps to be built on its platform. Theta operates on a dual-coin model to run its network activities:

• Theta Coin (THETA): THETA coin is used for managing the Theta protocol. Users can stake THETA coins to become Validators or Guardian Nodes, participating in producing new blocks and the protocol’s governance processes. The total supply of THETA coins is fixed and capped at 1 billion.
• Theta Fuel Coin (TFUEL): Theta Fuel (TFUEL) acts similarly to Ethereum’s gas. TFUEL is used for on-chain transactions, such as rewarding Edge Nodes that relay original content, forwarding existing video streams to other users, and interacting with smart contracts on the Theta Network. At the time of Theta’s mainnet launch, the initial TFUEL supply was 5 billion, and this supply grows annually at a fixed rate of 5%.

THETA, TFUEL, and Theta Network’s TNT-20 tokens can be securely stored in the official Theta Wallet app. It is available on both Android and iOS and can be easily integrated with hardware wallets like Ledger and Trezor. Users can also opt to use Theta’s desktop wallet. At the end of 2020, Theta Labs released the Theta Wallet browser extension for Chrome. Users can also use Theta Explorer to view on-chain transactions, addresses, and blocks on the Theta blockchain.

4. PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

Theta’s core mechanism decentralizes video streaming, data distribution, and edge computing, making it more efficient, cost-effective, and fairer for participants.

Theta’s appeal combines three benefits in one: viewers enjoy higher-quality streaming, content creators improve their earnings, and intermediaries or video platforms save on infrastructure costs while increasing revenue from ads and subscriptions.

Users are incentivized both to watch content and share network resources, as rewards come in the form of TFUEL tokens.

Besides video, data, and computing, Theta also supports developers who want to launch DApps on its EVM-compatible Smart Contract platform with full functionality.

5. WHAT IS THETA COIN?

The live price of THETA on CoinMarketCap today, 21/05/2022, is $1.22 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $76,358,755 USD.

5.1. Basic Information of Theta Coin

THETA TOKEN

• Token name: Theta Network

• Ticker: THETA

• Blockchain: Theta Network

• Type of token: Governance

• Proof of type: Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)

• Total current stake nodes: 35,503,550

• Total current stake: 59.79%

• Current circulating supply: 1,000,000,000 THETA

• Initial total supply: 1,000,000,000,000 THETA

• Token inflation: None

TFUEL TOKEN

• Token name: Theta Fuel

• Ticker: TFUEL

• Blockchain: Theta Network

• Type of token: Utility

• Initial distribution: Snapshot from THETA ERC20 to Main Blockchain, at a ratio of 1 THETA : 5 TFUEL

• Current circulating supply: 5.30 billion TFUEL

• Initial total supply: 5.30 billion TFUEL

• Annual inflation: Estimated at 5%, with staking and token burning

5.2. Theta Coin Allocation Plan

• Private sale accounted for 30% of the total token supply. It was conducted from September 26, 2017, to December 27, 2017, for 300,000,000 THETA and raised a total of 20.0 million USD at approximately $0.067 per token, selling 30% of the total token supply.
• The development team was allocated 7.49% of the total issued tokens (unlocked in January 2019).
• Advisors received 1.23% of the total issued tokens.
• Partners received 12.5% of the total issued tokens.
• Network Seeding received 12.5% of the total issued tokens.
• The test reserve accounted for 36.28% of the total issued tokens.

6. ROADMAP

Q2 2022

• Elite Edge Node encoding for Video on Demand (VoD)

• NFT-based Digital Rights Management (DRM)

• Launch of decentralized governance TDROP

Q3 2022

• EdgeStore Alpha Gateway

• Advanced analytics for Theta Video API

• Theta Video API streaming support (Beta)

Q4 2022

• EdgeStore Beta release

• Metachain Testnet target launch

• Metachain Mainnet 4.0 target release and SDK

2023+

• EdgeStore production release

• Decentralized Theta Video API for encoding, storage, and relay

• New applications of Edge Streaming, Storage, and Compute

7. DEVELOPMENT TEAM

Mitch Liu and Jieyi Long are the two co-founders of Theta Network, established in 2018. Liu has a long-standing background in the gaming and video industry, having co-founded video advertising company Tapjoy, mobile social gaming startup Gameview Studios, and THETA.tv.

Long is the second co-founder and CTO of Theta, with many years of experience in design automation, gaming, virtual reality, and large-scale distributed systems. He is the author of numerous peer-reviewed academic papers and holds various patents related to video streaming, blockchain, and virtual reality.

Detailed updates on the project team can be found on Theta’s official website: https://www.thetatoken.org/

8. SUMMARY

The above article by Finance Solutes has answered the questions: What is Theta Network? What are its functions and standout features? What purposes can the Theta coin be applied to?

The long-term vision of Theta Network is to serve as an end-to-end decentralized protocol for processing and delivering all types of data, including operating system updates, app updates, and other forms of web content.

The Theta team is making steady progress toward this goal, with the upcoming launch of version 3.0 of the Theta mainnet.