What is Theta Network? Theta is the leading purpose-built blockchain platform for video, media and entertainment.
Let’s find out what is special about this project with Weakhand in this article.
What is Theta Network?
Theta Network is a purpose-built blockchain platform targeting the media and entertainment industry. Theta infrastructure enables existing video and media platforms to increase revenue and reduce content delivery CDN costs while rewarding end users for sharing their storage and/or bandwidth across any PC, mobile, Smart TV or IoT device.
So what is a CDN?
A content delivery network (CDN) is a system of distributed servers deployed in multiple data centers around the world. These servers are used to store and distribute content such as websites, videos, and images.
When a user requests content from a website being served by a CDN, the CDN routes the request to the server closest to the user’s location. Due to location limitations, current CDNs cannot keep up with increasingly high-quality streams.
Theta enables its global user base to relay videos by providing their spare computing resources and bandwidth, while also rewarding TFUEL tokens (a token that operates like Ethereum Gas) for their contributions to the network. .
As more users join the Theta network, more bandwidth becomes available, thus improving the streaming quality of video on the network.
Theta has a rather unique consensus mechanism called BFT. This consensus mechanism consists of 2 layers:
-
Enterprise authentication node: Consists of 20 – 30 nodes operated by large companies such as: Google, Samsung, Binance, … staking THETA tokens to have the right to propose and complete new blocks in the chain.
-
Guardian node: Consisting of 1000 community-run nodes that work to ensure that the transaction blocks proposed by the enterprise validator node are correct.
With this uniquely designed consensus mechanism, Theta Blockchain is highly decentralized and can process 1,000 transactions per second without harming the environment.
Theta Network also allows developers to build decentralized applications (NFT, Dex, …) on its blockchain. Compatibility with EVM helps Theta attract more developers to build on its network.
Since its launch in March 2019, Theta Network has undergone many upgraded versions such as: Theta blockchain 2.0, Theta blockchain 3.0 and is currently in version Theta blockchain 4.0 (mainnet in early December 2022). Let’s learn about Theta blockchain 4.0 below to see what’s special about it.
Overview of Theta Network
Overall architecture of Theta Network:
The architecture includes 4 layers:
- Users/Platforms: Are video viewers, creators, streamers, and media platform partners. They are the users of the infrastructure.
- Theta Video API: Helps users and developers interact with Theta’s infrastructure.
- Theta Edge Network: Consists of nodes run by the Theta community. These nodes provide a variety of functions, including storage, video encoding, live stream transcoding, and data delivery.
- Theta Metachain: This is a unique point that Theta introduces to the community in version 4.0, I will introduce it in detail in the next section.
Below I will give an example to help everyone better understand how layers interact on Theta Network:
-
Video content creators upload clips to the storage infrastructure via the Theta Video API.
-
Theta EdgeStore detects a newly uploaded video, it assigns the transcoding job to one or more nodes. These nodes download the clip and transcode it into multiple versions with different resolutions of the video.
-
Nodes then upload the streams to the delivery infrastructure, including nodes and potentially existing content delivery networks (CDNs). Content creators are given a playback URL on the Theta Video API console that they can embed on their website.
-
Whenever a viewer watches a video, the delivery network finds the best possible routes to deliver the stream to the viewer.
The above example describes the process of using the Theta network to distribute video from content creators to end viewers, where the network is using the resources of nodes to transcode, upload, and distribute the video stream.
Introducing Theta Metachain
Theta’s vision is to create the first blockchain for all creators, from small and medium-sized video platforms, to global entertainment businesses, to individual amateur creators.
A one-size-fits-all format will not be enough, especially for large entertainment platforms that require their own custom blockchain environments. A solution that is more flexible, scalable, and customizable for different use cases and licensing-free is needed so that any entity or individual can leverage these benefits. Theta Metachain is the solution to these challenges.
Theta Metachain is a network of interconnected blockchains. The goal is to enable permissionless horizontal scaling of the Theta blockchain network to achieve unlimited scalable transaction throughput.
Theta Metachain consists of a “main chain” and countless “child chains”. Mainchain in this case refers to the existing Theta mainnet.
The child chain creation process is permissionless, meaning anyone can register and launch the child chain, without needing approval from Theta Labs. However, to create a new child chain or validate transactions on the child chain, developers need to deposit a certain amount of THETA tokens into the main chain as collateral on the child chain. The purpose of requiring THETA collateral for the child chain validator is to prevent potential malicious behavior.
Theta will provide an easy-to-use SDK that developers can quickly use to launch a child chain and plug it into the main chain. Since each child chain can execute transactions independently, this provides a viable path to infinitely scaling Metachain’s processing capacity.
To achieve design simplicity, the two subchains may not communicate directly with each other. Instead, transferring crypto assets between two child chains needs to go through the main chain.
This topology is similar to the Rollup-based Ethereum scaling solution. Theta Metachain can be extended to zk-rollup by adding some extensions, thus achieving a higher level of security assurance.
You can read more articles about Rollup-based Ethereum scaling here:
- The Difference Between Optimistic Rollup And Zk Rollup
- What is Optimistic Rollup? Overview of Optimistic Rollup
- What is Zk Rollup? Zk Rollup Solution Overview
Theta Network also designed an inter-chain messaging channel (IMC) protocol to facilitate the transfer of crypto assets between the main chain and child chains.
This cross-chain messaging channel design has a security model similar to that of Cosmos IBC.
To interact with the main chain, each child chain validator runs an accompanying main chain RPC node to interact with the main chain. With this setup, the child chain validator can monitor the main chain RPC to transfer assets from the main chain to the child chain in real time.
What is Theta Metachain’s Difference?
An important feature of Theta Metachain is the “uniformity” of the main chain and all child chains being EVM compatible and can therefore provide a unified programming interface for DApp developers.
The main chain and each child chain are powered by two tokens: a gas token (TFUEL) and a governance token. On the main chain THETA, each individual child chain will have its own governance token, making it possible for developers on the child chain to tailor the governance token to their development path.
Each child chain is also allowed to have its own consensus mechanism while still having the security of the main chain. Such flexibility allows different consensus protocols to be customized for specific use cases to suit individual and enterprise environments.
Unlike typical cross-chain bridge implementations, cross-chain asset transfers on Theta do not rely on a set of additional trusted nodes to facilitate cross-chain asset transfers. Removing this additional dependency enhances security. Cross-chain assets on a subchain are only at risk when the subchain itself is compromised.
Core Team
Theta Network is developed by the company Theta Labs.
Some prominent members include:
Mitch Liu: Co Founder & CEO
-
2006 – 2010: Mitch co-founded Tapjoy, Inc and is one of the pioneers in social and mobile video advertising.
-
2010 – 2011: Mitch co-founded Gameview Studios, creators of Tap Fish, one of the first free-to-play mobile games on iOS and Android to top the charts.
-
2012 – 2015: Mitch co-founded Midverse Studios, Inc. A company that provides a gaming platform for mobile devices.
-
June 2017 – present: Mitch co-founded and is CEO at Theta Labs
Jieyi Long: Co Founder & CTO
-
Jieyi Long received a bachelor’s degree in e-wallet at Beijing University, China. He also received his PhD in Computer Engineering from Northwestern University in Evanston.
-
2014 – 2015: Jieyi Long co-founded MadSkill Game Studios developing a real-time multiplayer game engine for mobile platforms.
-
September 2015 – present: Jieyi Long co-founded SLIVER.tv, an esports entertainment platform that streams top esports games in fully immersive 360° cinematic VR videos.
-
June 2017 – present: Jieyi Long co-founder and CTO of Theta Labs
Investor
Theta Labs successfully raised a total of $113M through 5 funding rounds. The most recent call was March 23, 2021 for $100M.
Tokenomics
Theta Network includes 2 types of tokens:
-
Theta Fuel (TFUEL): works like Ethereum Gas and is responsible for the interaction with smart contracts in the Theta network and rewards storage and bandwidth sharing.
-
THETA tokens: The governance token runs on Theta’s network.
Basic information about THETA token
-
Token Name: THETA
-
Ticker: THETA
-
Blockchain: Theta Network
-
Token Type: Governance
-
Total Supply: 1,000,000,000 THETA
Basic information about TFUEL token
-
Token Name: Theta Fuel
-
Ticker: TFUEL
-
Blockchain: Theta Network
-
Token Type: Utility
-
Total Supply: Not fixed
Token Allocation THETA
-
Theta Lab: 36.3%
-
Network Seedings: 12.5%
-
Token Sale: 30%
-
Team: 7.5%
-
Advisors & Employees: 1.2%
-
Partners: 12.5%
Token Release THETA
THETA token has released 100% tokens
Road Map
In 2023, Theta Network continues to improve and perfect the network. Some improvements include:
-
EdgeStore release
-
Improved Theta Video API for encoding, storage, and forwarding
-
New use cases for streaming, storage.
Exchanges
THETA can be traded on exchanges such as: Binance, OKX, Gate, …
Information Channel of Theta Network Project
- Website: https://www.thetatoken.org/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Theta_Network
- Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/theta_network
- Discord:
summary
Theta Network has been improving its network to meet user needs in the new era. Theta Metachain will be created to meet the needs of video platforms, ticketing companies, the metaverse, and many other businesses as they evolve into decentralized models that capture value and ownership of data back to the user’s hands.
Let’s look forward to the next developments of Theta Network as well as the Wed3 industry.