If you’re a cryptocurrency fan, you probably noticed that a new name popped up in several coin top lists — THETA. In this article, we’ll discuss what Theta Coin is and how it is part of a project that has the power to change the way content is distributed over the Internet.
To begin with, Theta is a blockchain-based project that has an objective to improve live streaming. Live streaming has been one of the fastest-growing fields in the world, with a predicted value of $70b that it will reach by the end of 2021, and that’s why Theta plays such a big role.
Theta is essentially an open-source protocol that uses blockchain and allows users to build dapps on it, just like Ethereum. It is a decentralized platform that focuses on video delivery on a peer-to-peer basis and makes it better for all users around the globe.
Simply put, the power needed to live stream a video is used from all computers that are part of the network, harnessing the power of blockchain and making the entire content-delivery experience faster. Most importantly, Theta makes the entire thing much more affordable, so people worldwide could easily enjoy the video content they like.
A Short History of Theta
Theta was founded by Jieyi Long and Mitch Liu. The first one is an expert in the field of virtual reality & live streaming technologies, and the other is an experienced business person who had already established several other startups. Theta was founded in 2017. It started small but eventually grew into a popular company. Theta’s team hosted a private sale quickly after the project was announced. Almost 30% of the total supply (one billion units) was sold back then, raising nearly $20 million to invest into the project.
There’s an official Theta website, Theta.tv, where visitors can view content and get paid in TFUEL, the gas crypto that supports the Theta ecosystem. Please take into account that TFUEL and THETA are not the same thing, and we’re focusing on THETA in this article.
How Does It Work?
The blockchain network uses a peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol to help participants who engage in content sharing (or distribution in general) get paid for it in real-time payment. Moreover, Theta users can apply the platform similarly to Ethereum, which means they can build decentralized applications. That’s because Theta is essentially an open-source project.
Theta uses the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism, similar to various other blockchains. Unlike Proof-of-Work (PoW), where enormous computing energy is used to maintain the mechanism, the nodes in PoS just lock their coins to have the right to verify all transactions happening on the network.
Nodes on the Theta blockchain are divided into Edge Nodes, Guardian Nodes, and Validator Nodes. The Edge Nodes are basically all people who are allowed to stream and share a fraction of their Internet speed for streaming on Theta.tv. They get TFUEL for their services. Guardian Nodes are guardians of the Enterprise nodes. They are basically responsible for consensus maintenance, ensuring that the blocks that are created by enterprise validators and added to the chain perform well. They spot malicious blocks and stop them. According to the latest updates, you’ll have to stake a thousand Theta to run a node as a guardian.
Validator nodes are basically companies that stake a lot of tokens to get the right to process all transactions on the network. Some of the businesses that staked one million Theta units to do that are Google, Samsung, Sony, and many others.
Theta Coin
There are a total of one billion Theta, and all coins are currently in circulation. The market cap of Theta on July 16, 2021, was $4.4 billion, which puts it in 22nd place on the list of cryptos with the highest market cap. The token’s all-time low was recorded on March 13, 2020, when it was only $0.03977. On the other hand, the all-time high was $15.90, and that price was reached on April 16, 2021.
Where to Trade Theta?
THETA is actively traded with many other digital currencies, including BTC, LTC, and more. There are plenty of great exchanges supporting the coin where you can find plenty of crypto pairs involving Theta. For example, if you want to make an LTC to THETA conversion, you can check out Godex, which is a beginner-friendly platform that allows anonymous trading and has no maximum limits on swaps. It supports 200+ other cryptocurrencies and many other trading pairs.
Final Thoughts: Is Theta the Future?
To sum up, Theta is definitely an interesting project, and many people are already interested in it and supporting cryptocurrencies. We cannot say whether Theta is a good investment on a long-term basis, but it has been performing rather well lately. After all, whenever a crypto is supported by a legitimate project that aims to upgrade the world around us (video content distribution in Theta’s case), there’s a good chance it will attract many investors.
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