What is Theta Network (THETA)?
- Author
- CRYPTO PORT Editorial
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 5 min
In short
Theta Network is a blockchain designed to reduce the bandwidth cost of video delivery. Viewers' devices relay video to other viewers using spare bandwidth and are paid for doing so. It uses two tokens: THETA for staking and governance, and TFUEL for bandwidth rewards and fees.
Key points
- Peer-to-peer delivery in which viewer devices relay traffic and share the delivery load
- Two tokens: THETA for staking and governance, TFUEL for rewards and fees
- A two-tier node structure of validators plus guardian nodes that share verification
- More recently extended to pooling GPU capacity for computation
Definition
A two-token blockchain that aims to cut video delivery bandwidth costs by using viewer devices as relay points.
In video streaming, CDN costs grow with the audience. Theta's observation was that viewers' connections have unused upstream bandwidth. If devices watching the same stream pass segments to each other, less data has to come from central servers.
Devices doing that relaying are edge nodes, and they earn TFUEL for the bandwidth and compute they contribute. TFUEL also pays network fees and is designed to be inflationary. THETA, by contrast, is used for staking and governance — the two roles are deliberately separated.
Consensus uses two tiers: a limited set of validators proposes blocks, and a much larger set of guardian nodes verifies and finalises them. Anyone can run a guardian node by staking THETA and is rewarded for participating in verification.
Published deployments include integrations with streaming platforms and use in sports and esports broadcasts. More recently the project has extended into pooling GPU capacity from participants for machine learning and video processing workloads.
Watch out for
- · Demand for bandwidth and compute depends on partner platforms, so usage shifts with external factors
- · THETA and TFUEL are separate tokens with different roles and supply designs, and are easy to confuse on exchanges
- · The validator set is small, so its decentralisation is not directly comparable with other PoS chains