THETA Up 18000% In The Last Year

THETA, the native token of the Theta Network (a sharing economy video delivery network) has been going ballistic this year. Since the beginning of the year, it has increased almost 6-fold. From a year ago, THETA is up a staggering 18,000%. The question is how? Let’s dive into why the market is so excited about THETA…

Theta is a blockchain and token that will be used to power a decentralized video streaming and delivery network. The Theta Token functions as an incentive mechanism that encourages users to share their unused memory and bandwidth, serving as video caching and relay nodes for the network.

Theta will be an open-source project that will be shared with industry and community participants, and their long-term vision is to have all video platforms participate in the network by building decentralized apps (dApps) on top of the Theta protocol. Applications such as TV, movies, esports, music, education, and enterprise conferencing can benefit from building on the Theta Network.

The idea is that this way, people with spare bandwidth can share it with others who might need more. In exchange, participants receive token rewards for contributing to the network.

Computing power becomes a real issue once you move into the territory of 4K and 8K streaming, where bandwidth becomes a major bottleneck. Theta tokens can be used on the network itself, but they can also be sold outside the network on major exchanges.

Unlike most other cryptocurrencies, which still have to issue their maximum number of allotted tokens, Theta has already hit the one billion token mark, which is the current maximum that the platform intends to issue.

Why does video streaming need a decentralised network?

Theta’s decentralized network provides various benefits to stakeholders in the streaming video ecosystem:

1. Viewers: Improved video Quality of Service (QoS) and the potential to be rewarded just for watching videos;
2. Caching Nodes / Relayers: The opportunity to earn Theta Tokens by sharing their bandwidth, relaying video streams, and supporting the Theta Network;
3. Streaming Video Platforms: Bandwidth costs can be reduced by up to 80% for video streams off-loaded to the Theta mesh network, which increases the profitability of video platforms and provides them greater ability to reward content creators and their viewers;
4. Content Creators: Increased transparency of video views and payments, allowing creators to earn more for the content they have created;
5. Advertisers: Increased transparency of which ads are being viewed via proof-of-engagement, leading to more effective, directed ads and better user experience

How is Theta different to other video tokens?

Unlike many other blockchain projects out there, Theta has some remarkably high-profile individuals on its roster of advisors. This includes YouTube co-founder Steven Chen as well Justin Kan, co-founder of streaming platform Twitch.

Because of this, many think Theta has a lot more long-term potential than many other altcoins, given the nature of its project and the real-life problem it's solving.

Theta is aiming to develop a new blockchain and technology purpose-built for video delivery and streaming, while the tokens work as an incentive and reward mechanism to motivate all stakeholders, specifically, the video caching/ relay miners to participate in the network. Most other existing video tokens are ERC20-only application-level tokens and do not have the technical ability to scale and handle infrastructure level video delivery needs with built-in incentives.

Theta is the only end-to-end solution for decentralized video streaming, providing incentives to all users within the network. In the long-run, as more caching and relay nodes join and the Theta network becomes denser the utility of tokens will also increase.

Already, we are seeing Theta introduced on technology that is in normal people’s homes.

Samsung is embedding the blockchain-powered Theta.tv streaming service into its line of Galaxy smartphones and smart TV’s, bringing the gaming and esports streaming service to its new line-up of technology. The streaming platform is powered by the Theta token and blockchain and will enable millions of Samsung phone users to have direct access to their gaming-centred content. Theta.tv allows users to earn tokens, dubbed TFUEL, for watching and sharing streams on the platform. Users can also transfer tokens through the service or trade them on crypto exchanges.

Where can the price go to from here?

There’s no denying that a 12-month 18,000% increase sounds unreasonable. But, considering the real-world application of the THETA token and a market cap of $17.2B, it likely isn't a "bubble", but rather the quick adoption of technology. Time will only tell if the price continues its monster trend, but it certainly is a rock-solid project with some big names supporting it.

If you want to get your hands on some THETA or T Fuel, feel free to head to Ainslie Wealth to place an order or give us a call. We’re happy to flesh out any questions you may have regarding investing in cryptocurrencies.