Theta heating up into Q3/Q4 — Part 2
This post is my perspective on some of the major Theta developments planned per the roadmap from July ‘19-December ‘19
Before moving forward, if you have not read Part 1 of this post, please do so @ https://medium.com/@acryptoconsultant/theta-heating-up-into-q3-q4-9c4dda893eee.
The Theta team has been exceptional with product development and have been flawless on meeting roadmap goals (minus Mainnnet but it was all for the best). When I saw the updated 2019 roadmap, I immediately became excited about further product and blockchain development.
Launch support for video on demand (VoD) in Theta Mesh Streaming Network
VOD, video on demand, is the “other half” of Theta Networks core technology, live video streaming. Theta Network’s initial goal was to specialize in live video streaming, as a solution to their parent company, Sliver.tv’s pain point of hefty international CDN costs. As the Theta Network, and demand for it has grown, the team is now developing the “other half” of their technology.
This is where Theta Network becomes more interesting.
Blockchain security is paramount to every project and everybody involved, from founders to retail investors. If a network is compromised beyond a certain extent, it could lose all value as everybody falls into panic and nobody wants to be left holding a value-less bag. The blockchain developments planned for Q3 are heavily anticipated by everyone, especially on the frontline in the Telegram community. There are a lot of longtime loyal investors and shrewd newcomers who are stacking up their 100k Theta Tokens to meet the token minimum in order to stake a Guardian Node (GN) to the Theta Network. *Note that staking is different than mining
The Guardian Node functionality is vital to network security. The plan is to have at least 1,000 Theta Token holders who consistently hold (do not trade) at least 100,000 Theta Tokens in their wallet and maintain a 24/7 computer/node (fairly high end CPU requirement, though low energy/bandwidth) connected to the internet which communicates with the rest of the decentralized network.
The above sounds like a lot, and it kind of is. One advantage of decentralization is to prevent malicious actors from utilizing resources (energy, bandwidth, processing power, brute force, or phishing attacks) to penetrate a network. By spreading so many tokens across so many verified good actors (GN’s are monitored by Validators), the developers of the Theta Network anticipate malicious actors not being able to compromise the first line of defense. This GN function shows Theta Network‘s strength in executing their concept, showing that this blockchain was well designed, and is participated, and invested, in by people all over the world. This decentralization also helps marketing by word of mouth, proof of concept, and real people earning real money by staking (securing) the network! How cool is that?!
Hardware integration is another “other half” type concept where Theta can utilized in all mobile devices and PCs, but for full network scalability, will need to be integrated into set-top boxes, gaming consoles, TVs, and other consumer electronics devices. The goal is the average consumer learns about Theta a while before they get their new TV, and when they set up wi-fi they get asked, “Would you like to earn money while you watch your favorite TV shows and movies?” Another potential hardware integration is Theta built in to consoles (PS/Xbox) allow gamers to earn while watching other gamers stream, all within their console, and likewise can stream from their console.
Smart Contracts are also necessary for network scalability, DApp versatility, and user adoption. Per Theta Network’s Medium post, “(Ethereum Virtual Machine capability) will allow Solidity-based Ethereum smart contracts to be ported to the Theta Ledger with little effort, and more broadly make it easier for platforms to build dapps, collectible items using Non-Fungible Tokens, or even fully-fledged new token ecosystems on top of the Theta blockchain.” Smart contracts are not my strength so I can’t really elaborate further, but this is great to know that the team is working on this aspect of the technology. Smart contracts can be used for games, NFTs, betting, predictions, etc.
Finally, the focus in Q4 is distribution and media format versatility for their decentralized Content Delivery Network. I think that publishers and networks will be able to gather more data from a video ecosystem that is built specifically for data and sharing, which goes beyond just “pushing data” and includes information such as geolocation, time spent, mouse movements, etc, in exchange for tokens. This is only the beginning, and very exciting!
Disclosure: This article is not financial advice. I own Theta Token and TFuel.
