The History of THETA: Evolution of a Blockchain-Based Video Delivery Platform

THETA emerged to solve a key challenge in the video streaming industry—high costs associated with content delivery. The project was spearheaded by Mitch Liu and Jieyi Long, who co-founded Theta Labs in 2017. With backgrounds in video games, virtual reality, and live streaming technologies, the two created a decentralized model that sought to disrupt the traditional content delivery network (CDN) approach. The concept behind THETA was both simple and innovative: leverage blockchain technology to allow users to share excess bandwidth and computing resources to help stream video content more efficiently. In this system, nodes powered by users facilitate video delivery, lowering costs and improving global streaming quality. This user-driven, decentralized approach offered a potential solution to issues like buffering and loading delays prevalent in traditional streaming platforms. THETA's blockchain operates as a peer-to-peer network with the goal of distributed video delivery, which it incentivizes through its native cryptocurrency, THETA. Users are rewarded with THETA tokens for sharing their bandwidth and resources to support the network.

2018 ICO and Partnership with Sliver.tv

In early phases, THETA gained initial funding through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) conducted in early 2018, where it raised approximately $20 million. This funding allowed the project to further develop and expand its platform. An early key partnership was with esports live-streaming service Sliver.tv, where Theta’s blockchain technology was first put to practical use. At this stage, live streaming in a decentralized manner was the core focus—an area where traditional infrastructure struggled in terms of cost and quality.

Mainnet Launch and Guardian Nodes

The launch of Theta’s mainnet took place in 2019, marking a significant milestone. The native blockchain initially operated with a handful of enterprise validator nodes and also introduced "guardian nodes" to ensure the network's decentralization. Guardian nodes serve as a second layer of defense, validating blocks between the validator nodes and the broader Theta network. With the mainnet operational, Theta's potential use cases expanded beyond live streaming to include video-on-demand and possibly leveraging the broader CDN market. The project attracted several high-profile partners from the tech industry, including companies like Samsung and Google.

Theta Guardian Program and Global Adoption

The launch of the Theta Guardian Program was another attempt to decentralize its blockchain further. Through this program, regular users—along with companies—could participate in the running of nodes, broadening its base of active participants. Strategic partnerships with leading tech firms further increased the legitimacy of Theta's offerings, and the network continued to garner adoption across multiple sectors. THETA's ambition remains to provide scalable video delivery while compensating users who contribute resources, continuing to evolve in a fiercely competitive space.