What Is Theta Network (THETA)?
THETA is the native coin of the Theta Network, which is a decentralized video streaming platform. It functions by enabling peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing of computing resources and bandwidth. If you're interested in the current Theta Network price, check out the THETA price chart above.
Overall, the Theta Network crypto project seeks to transform the state of the video streaming world by bringing decentralization into a centralized industry. It aims to improve the industry's efficiency, affordability, and fairness for all participants.
Talking about participants, Theta benefits viewers, content creators, and video platforms. Viewers get better quality videos, content creators get higher profits, and video platforms enhance advertising and subscription revenues while spending less on infrastructure development.
The network runs on a native blockchain called Theta. Aside from having the THETA coin, it also has the TFUEL (Theta Fuel) coin. Similar to how gas is utilized to fuel transactions on Ethereum, TFUEL does the same on the Theta Network. Its max token supply is 5 billion. Besides, TFUEL is also used to reward viewers for watching videos streamed on the Theta Network and sharing the content with others.
Also, note that the Theta Network offers developers a fully featured EVM-compatible smart contract platform for launching decentralized applications (dApps) of their own. The first dApp built using this platform was a live streaming platform called THETA.tv (Mitch Liu, the co-founder of Theta, developed this dApp).
The Theta Network price is affected by the fluctuations of the whole crypto market. It's known for its volatility and rapid changes in value.
Developers of the Theta Network
Mitch Liu and Jieyi Long founded the Theta Network crypto project in 2018. When the platform was launched, the Theta Network price was recorded at around $0.15. It stayed in this range for its first two years on the market.
Jieyi Long has a lot of experience in large-scale distributed systems, virtual reality, gaming, and design automation. Mitch Liu also has a lot of experience in the gaming industry. Prior to founding the Theta Network, Liu co-founded Gameview studios and Tapjoy.
Besides, Justin Kan, a co-founder of Twitch, and Steve Chen, a co-founder of YouTube, are the advisors of the Theta crypto project.
Starting in the latter half of 2020, the asset started to act more volatile. Days before the new year, the THETA price exceeded $1 for the first time. Throughout 2021, it was mainly on an upward trajectory, peaking at $14 in April.
THETA tokens have been noted to follow the overall crypto market trends. For example, the Theta Network price was negatively affected by the crypto market crash in May-June 2022.
How Does the Theta Network Function?
In order to balance security and high transaction throughput, the network uses Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and multi-level Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus mechanisms. However, the PoS consensus mechanism that Theta employs differs from the traditional PoS mechanism due to its multi-BFT integration.
Aside from only using Validator nodes that approve and create new blocks on the chain, Theta also utilizes Guardian nodes. They seal blocks and serve as a safeguard against malicious or unreliable Validator nodes. Thus, Theta ensures that no single entity has control over the majority of staked THETA coins.
Besides the Validator nodes and Guardian nodes, there are also Edge nodes operated by the community members. In essence, Edge nodes enable users to record live videos, encode, and transmit video material. Also, they allow users to share bandwidth internationally over the network in a decentralized manner.
Though note that while Guardian and Edge nodes are operated by the community, Validator nodes are run by Google, Blockchain Ventures, Samsung, Sony Europe, and Binance.
The Purpose of THETA Coins
The main purpose that THETA coins carry is the governance of the network. Since the network employs a PoS consensus mechanism, by staking THETA coins, users are able to get governance rights. This means that they can participate in the decision-making processes considering further development of the network and its fund distribution. Besides, users receive TFUEL coins for running nodes and staking THETA coins.
Tokenomics of THETA
The THETA coins have a max supply of 1 billion tokens. Therefore, the asset is anti-inflationary. The Theta Network price is likely to rise as the available supply diminishes.
THETA coins were initially launched in 2018. At first, Theta Network coins were issued as ERC-20 tokens stored on the Ethereum blockchain. However, THETA tokens were later transferred to the Theta blockchain as its native coins. When the Theta blockchain launched in 2019, holders of THETA received TFUEL coins at a 1:5 rate, meaning that they received five TFUEL coins for every THETA coin.
During the private THETA coin sale that took place in 2018, around 300 million THETA coins were distributed. This way, $20 million worth of Ethereum coins were collected. The coins that remained after the sale were distributed among Theta reserve, miner reserve, network seed and strategic partners, and advisors.
If you're planning to buy THETA coins, make sure to check out the Theta Network price chart above.
