Theta Crypto: The Next-Gen Video and Entertainment Network
Video streaming is projected to generate a revenue of $54.66 billion by 2027. Although YouTube and Netflix are dominating the sector, decentralized video-streaming networks like Theta Network are making a headwind.
In December 2022, Theta Labs launched its mainnet, Metachain, to create a network of blockchains. Its mainnet release has caused the Theta Network price to climb the charts since the second week of January 2023. But is Theta truly the future of streaming? Let’s take a look at its prospects.
How Theta Network Works
Theta Labs is founded by gaming start-up founders Mitch Liu and Jieyi Long. Theta Network is driven by the Theta Labs team which consists of experienced media professionals who previously held positions at major media firms like Netflix and Amazon.
Billing itself as a "web3 blockchain infrastructure for video, media and entertainment,” Theta aims to change the centralized nature of video streaming by providing the necessary bandwidth needed through peer-to-peer delivery. Through Theta, users can share video streams and contribute their excess bandwidth and computing resources in exchange for token rewards, thereby improving infrastructure and lowering costs, all of which enhance user experience. In addition, Theta users can reward the content creators they support with tokens. This feature offers content creators an additional income source, incentivizing them to continue putting out high-quality content.
Theta Network is a dual-system network split into two components – Theta Blockchain and Theta Edge Network. It is also a dual-token network, with an ERC-20 token TNT-20, known as TFUEL, and its native token, THETA, driving its ecosystem.
Theta Blockchain
The Theta Blockchain runs on an advanced proof of stake (PoS) protocol featuring a multi-level Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) consensus mechanism. This blockchain has two layers, with the first comprising 20 to 30 Enterprise Validator Nodes and the second containing thousands of community-run Guardian Nodes. Enterprise Validator Nodes are owned by global companies such as Google and Sony. They propose and finalize new blocks in the chain, while Guardian Nodes act as security to check that the Validator Nodes are accurate.
The Theta Blockchain is EVM-compatible and supports Turing-complete smart contracts. It has complete support for the Ethereum RPC API, thereby allowing Theta to interact with the entire Ethereum DApp dev stack. These features allow for a diverse variety of decentralized apps (DApps) ranging from non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to decentralized exchanges (DEXs) to be built on Theta.
Theta Edge Network
The Theta Edge Network is a part of the Theta video infrastructure which is made of over 100,000 Theta Edge Nodes that form a decentralized network to perform edge computing, data storage and delivery. These nodes allow videos to be freely streamed over the Theta Network and the node owners earn TFUEL as rewards for supporting the network operations. Theta’s latest updates also permit Edge Nodes to broadcast and share their own video streams without having to rely on centralized content delivery networks.
Theta Metachain
Launched on Dec 1, 2022, the Theta Metachain is a permissionless blockchain network with a main chain that is seamlessly interlinked with an unlimited amount of subchains. Theta Metachain can potentially achieve infinite transactional throughput and subsecond block finalization time, thereby enabling the chain to scale boundlessly.
All the chains in the network, from the main chain to the subchains, run on Theta Network's dual-token system. However, subchain governance tokens are TNT-20 tokens instead of the THETA native token in order to prevent minority chain stake attacks on the main chain. The THETA native token is used as collateral instead in the subchains to enhance its utility and demand.
The Theta Metachain is integrated as the top layer of the Theta video infrastructure and interacts with the Theta Edge Network. Media and entertainment companies can easily run on one of the subchains to customize their DApps according to their needs.
Source: Theta blockchain 4.0 whitepaper
Theta Token Uses: THETA and TFUEL
The Theta Network is mainly powered by two tokens – THETA and TFUEL. Theta’s native token (THETA) is a governance token that runs on the Theta network. THETA has a fixed supply of 1 billion and is used to stake and run an Enterprise Validator Node or a Guardian Node to earn TFUEL.
TFUEL are operational tokens that work in the same way as Ethereum Gas and are responsible for all transactionson the Theta network. They are given out to Enterprise Validator Nodes and Guardian Nodes, Edge Nodes that share video streams and interact with smart contracts on the network, and streamers and users who share their bandwidth. Like THETA, TFUEL can be staked on Edge Nodes to upgrade them to Elite Edge Nodes to earn more TFUEL.
Source: Theta blockchain 3.0 Whitepaper
TFUEL has an initial total supply of 5 billion which is increased at a 5% annual inflation rate. Although it has no cap on its supply, at least 25% of all TFUEL payments are burned, hence TFUEL will still ultimately increase in value as more people adopt Theta Network. With the launch of Metachain, the gas costs of TFUEL on the subchains are significantly reduced.
The Theta Network also has a third token, TDROP, that is used for its NFT transactions. TDROP is the governance token for the ThetaDrop NFT platform and is earned through the purchase of NFTs on the ThetaDrop NFT marketplace or third-party DApp.
Theta Network Price History
After its launch in January 2018, THETA's price stayed relatively modest through its first year, staying under the $0.50 mark. However, it finally broke that psychological price level in September 2020. Its price rocketed from September 2020, and in early January 2021, it went past the $2 mark and peaked at nearly $15.72 on Apr 16, 2021. This was merely months after it went past $1.
However, the price of THETA dropped rapidly from its all-time high, falling to $0.371 by Jul 21, 2021. It experienced a brief recovery for a few months but started crashing again in December, cascading down to $1.22 by May 2022. THETA's price continued to drop over the whole of 2022 alongside the global crypto slump, albeit at a slower rate, and dipped below $1 by the end of November. From early January 2023, a month after its Metachain release, THETA has seen a modest increase back to above $1 and currently trades at $1.10 (as of Jan 30, 2023).
Theta Crypto Price Prediction
Many price analysts hold a positive outlook for Theta Network, expecting healthy price growth over the long term for its native coin, THETA. Let’s take a look at what some of them have said.
Changellythinks THETA could exceed $5 by 2026 and hit $25.41 by 2030.
Like Changelly, Price Prediction estimates THETA to cross the $5 mark by 2026 and also reach a maximum of $25.41 by 2030.
Digital Coin Price has similar predictions for THETA's price for 2026, anticipating it to reach $5.01, but predicts a slower growth by 2030 at only $11.49.
Tech News Leader is also optimistic about THETA's price, expecting it to range between $4.87 to $5.71 in 2026 and exceed $20 by 2030.
Is Theta Crypto a Good Investment?
Many analysts expect Theta’s value to appreciate over the coming years, but for what reasons?
High Efficiency of the Metachain
The Theta blockchain was already incredibly efficient, with an average transaction time of just 3 seconds and handling 1,000 transactions per second (TPS). With the release of Metachain, Theta is now able to achieve a finalization time of 1-2 seconds or even sub-seconds, and has unlimited transaction throughput. That will inevitably make it attractive to many forward-thinking video and media companies seeking to decentralize their products and services.
Growth of the Global Video Streaming Market
The global video streaming market is expected to continue its mammoth growth in the coming years. With video streaming sites such as YouTube continuing to add content creator barriers (such as guidelines on content), the demand for a high-quality video streaming platform with no barriers will only continue to increase. That’s where Theta can come in and plug the gap.
High Profile Partnerships
Theta has established several high-profile partnerships with major conglomerates such as Samsung and Sony, all of which help to boost its profile beyond the world of crypto. The most high profile of these is its partnership with Google in May 2020, which heralded the search engine giant’s first movement into cryptocurrency. As part of the deal, Google powers the cloud infrastructure of Theta, and Google users can deploy and run nodes on the network.
Where To Buy Theta Network (THETA)
You can buy THETA tokens on top centralized exchanges such as Bybit, Binance, KuCoin and Huobi. Sign up on Bybit to buy THETA tokens as a Spot pair (THETA/USDT) or trade THETA as a USDT Perpetual (THETAUSDT).
The Bottom Line
By enabling peer-to-peer sharing of videos, Theta Network provides incentives for end users and further empowers them with the usage of governance tokens to ensure long-term engagement with its network. As it transitions to Metachain, Theta Network is well-prepared to cater to the growth of decentralization as more businesses expand into the web3 space. The interconnecting network of chains will enable Theta Network to truly scale and evolve to revolutionize the current centralized video streaming networks. Theta Network seems poised to take the lead as the next-gen video and entertainment platform, and we're all keeping a close watch to see Theta's next development.