CUPERTINO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–By 2020, 82% of all internet traffic will be video. Currently accounting
for 67% of internet traffic, the video content and streaming market is a
multi-billion dollar industry that continues to explode. However, the
ecosystem today is highly centralized and inefficient, resulting in low
quality streaming, high cost of content delivery, and limited revenue
flow back to content creators. The problem is only worsening with new
streaming technologies, such as 360° virtual reality (VR). The solution
is a decentralized peer-to-peer network leveraging the power of
blockchain.
Theta
Labs (www.thetatoken.org),
a subsidiary of SLIVER.tv,
one of the leading VR live streaming companies, is announcing a
decentralized streaming network, powered by users and a new native
blockchain. The founding team has a combined 30+ years of experience in
the video streaming space with advisors including Steve Chen, Co-Founder
of YouTube, and Justin Kan, Co-Founder of Twitch.
Theta is an open source protocol purpose-built to power the
decentralized streaming network and will allow for vertical
decentralized apps (DApps) to be built on top of the platform to enable
esports, music, TV/movies, education, enterprise conferencing,
peer-to-peer streaming, and more. SLIVER.tv’s DApp will be the first
application built on the Theta network leveraging its existing user base
of millions of esports viewers.
The core of the network enables users worldwide with un-utilized PC
bandwidth and resources to cache and relay video streams to others in
the network and in turn mine Theta tokens, similar to Bitcoin and
Ethereum. This is especially valuable in many parts of the world with
spotty internet connectivity. Imagine, a user in the middle of Brazil
goes to sleep with his computer on, wakes up in the morning and has made
a few dollars by running his Theta app in the background. The
peer-to-peer decentralized network will allow for much more efficient,
high quality streaming. Publishers and content creators will no longer
need to develop expensive infrastructure, empowering original content
creation and novel business models.
The Theta blockchain is the only end-to-end infrastructure for
decentralized video streaming and delivery that provides both technical
and economic solutions, and utilizes:
-
Reputation Dependent Mining – When a caching node mines a new
Theta block it calculates a reputation score for itself. The
reputation score is a measure of the amount of video stream data it
relayed in a recent time window. A high reputation score increases the
block reward, and in turn encourages the caching node to relay more
video. -
Global Reputation Consensus – When a new block is mined, all
caching nodes must verify the reputation score of the caching node
that mined the block, and thus form a global consensus on the block
reward. -
Proof-of-Engagement – Proves viewers legitimately consume the
video streams, providing transparency to advertisers and a basis for
viewers to earn Theta tokens in return for engaging with the content.
“We’ve been on the cutting edge of live streaming technology and by
leveraging blockchain we will truly be able to transform the video and
entertainment industry,” said Mitch Liu, Co-Founder and CEO of Theta
Labs, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of SLIVER.tv. ”Theta will be
uniquely built to leverage the incentive mechanisms of the blockchain,
enabling end-users to contribute their excess PC bandwidth and resources
to relay video streams to others and earn Theta tokens at the same time.
It’s a win-win for all stakeholders in the ecosystem.”
“Theta’s innovation is set to disrupt today’s online video industry much
in the same way that the YouTube platform did to traditional video back
in 2005. One of our biggest challenges had been the high costs of
delivering video to various parts of the world, and this problem is only
getting bigger with HD, 4K and higher quality video streams,” said Steve
Chen, Co-Founder of YouTube. “I’m excited to be part of the next
evolution of the streaming space, helping Theta create a decentralized
peer-to-peer network that can offer improved video delivery at lower
costs.”
Other advisors include Professor Shoucheng Zhang, Founder of Danhua
Capital, Fan Zhang, founding member of Sequoia Capital China, Travis
Skewers, Founder of CoinMkt, one of the first US bitcoin exchanges,
Rajeev Surati, MIT Phd in video compression and streaming, Sebastian
Serrano, Founder of Ripio, the first global lending network on
blockchain, Cliff Morgan, CEO of GFUEL, Sam Wick, Head of UTA Ventures,
and Dennis Fong, CEO of Plays.tv aka “Thresh” the world champion of
Quake/Doom.
In December, Theta ERC20-compliant tokens will be implemented on the
SLIVER.tv platform as an application token for virtual gifting and
incentivizing streamers. Additionally, they will be utilized by
advertisers and brand sponsors to fund their ad campaigns and support
key content creators. These ERC20 tokens will be 1:1 exchangeable for
native Theta tokens when the new blockchain launches, planned for Q4
2018. Pre-registration is now open for the public token sale scheduled
to begin January 2018.
Learn more by reading Theta’s
whitepaper.
Join the conversation on our
blog, our
subreddit, and our
Slack channel.
About Theta Labs, Inc.:
Theta Labs, Inc. is a Delaware C-corp wholly owned subsidiary of
SLIVER.tv, a leading esports live streaming platform with over 1 million
monthly active users. SLIVER.tv is backed by $17M in financing from
top-tier Silicon Valley VCs including Danhua Capital, DCM, Sierra
Ventures, Venture Reality Fund, leading Hollywood/media investors
including Creative Artists Agency, BDMI, Greycroft GC Tracker, Advancit
Capital and top Japanese mobile gaming firms including GREE and Colopl.
Additionally, the company holds four patents, the most recent addressing
the problem of generating highly efficient spherical videos for VR 360°
streaming. For more information, visit us at www.ThetaToken.org.