Mar 14, 2019
Theta: Updated mainnet details, Guardian Node onboarding program, 2019 Roadmap, THETA tested in CJ Viewing TV Box, Collaboration with IoTeX, Web Wallet available now
Biweekly update 28th February — 14th March
This is not financial advice.
After 15 months of development, 9 months running the Theta testnet, 1,433 GitHub commits and 3 live testnet channels on SLIVER.tv, MBN, and Samsung VR, the Theta team is finally ready to launch the Theta mainnet tomorrow! To help keep the community up to date on what’s happening they published updated details on the Theta mainnet launch, snapshot block height, and 1:5 Theta Fuel airdrop. Also, the Theta web wallet has been released, it is fully supports the mainnet token swap. Exchanges supporting Theta mainnet so far are Binance, UPbit, Bithumb, Gate.io, DigiFinex, Huobi. New 2019 Roadmap was published. As a transition to Guardian Nodes functionality in Q3, Theta team is launching the Guardian Node onboarding program, including a downloadable client (to be released by end of March). Evaluation of the top participants in the Guardian Node onboarding program will influence which users are first to participate in operating Guardian Nodes upon their release. The team successfully deployed the Theta protocol into the CJ Viewing Box, an Android-based set top TV box. As part of this test, the Theta protocol was able to share video streams between the Viewing Box, mobile devices, and PC. Development will continue in the coming months toward deployment of this technology. Additionally, the team recently began collaborating with IoTeX, a leading project at the intersection of IoT and blockchain. And the last, but not the least — THETA has been one of the best gainers of these weeks.
Development
Updated Theta mainnet details, snapshot block height, and 1:5 Theta Fuel airdrop:
The Theta mainnet launch is tomorrow, and the team has some more updates for the community coming last week. Here is a quick summary of the mainnet launch schedule and details:
March 12th: The Theta mainnet snapshot is complete! The team completed the snapshot at Ethereum block 7,356,258 at 7:45:36 pm UTC, details here.
March 15th: The Theta native blockchain will launch at approximately 7PM UTC. For each ERC20 Theta Token you held at the time of the snapshot, you will automatically receive Theta Tokens on the Theta mainnet at a 1:1 ratio. You will also receive an airdrop of Theta Fuel, the operational or ‘gas’ token of the protocol, at a 1:5 ratio. Example: if you hold 1,000 ERC20 Theta Tokens at the time of the snapshot, you will receive 1,000 mainnet Theta Tokens as well as 5,000 Theta Fuel.
Wallets supporting Theta mainnet: Theta wallet for Android OS and Apple iOS, Web Wallet
Exchanges supporting Theta mainnet: Binance, UPbit, Bithumb, Gate.io, DigiFinex, Huobi
- See also Theta Mainnet — post-snapshot FAQs.
Update on Guardian Nodes and announcement of the Guardian Node onboarding program:
With the Theta mainnet launch fast approaching, the team would like to share with the community some important updates on Guardian Nodes, a critical piece of Theta’s Multi-Level BFT consensus mechanism. This includes the introduction of the Guardian Node onboarding program, which will let users start earning TFUEL and will help select the initial operators of Guardian Nodes.
- Guardian Nodes finalize blocks in Theta’s Multi-BFT consensus protocol, and are meant to be run by members of the Theta community. Users that run Guardian Nodes will be rewarded with TFUEL.
- Theta team expectation is that Guardian Node functionality will go live in Q3 2019
- The plan is for a minimum requirement of 100,000 Theta Tokens staked to run a Guardian Node
- As a transition to Guardian Nodes functionality in Q3, the team is launching the Guardian Node onboarding program, including a downloadable client (to be released by end of March) that will allow you to earn TFUEL based on the amount of Theta Tokens you hold, your “node” uptime, and your system specs. For the Guardian Node onboarding client, there is no minimum number of Theta Tokens to hold, and all users will be able to earn TFUEL.
- Evaluation of the top participants in the Guardian Node onboarding program will influence which users are first to participate in operating Guardian Nodes upon their release
More on The Guardian Node onboarding program:
The Guardian Node onboarding program begins with a downloadable client that verifies the number of Theta Tokens you hold, your hardware specs, and your uptime/consistency running the client. By scoring well in all those categories, you will earn TFUEL rewards in your Theta wallet just as you will when the actual Guardian Node functionality launches in Q3. Your TFUEL earnings will be proportional to the Theta Tokens you hold in your wallet — the more Theta you hold, the more TFUEL you’ll earn. This TFUEL will come from the TFUEL reserves that Theta Labs holds, and until Guardian Nodes formally launch the supply of TFUEL will remain fixed at 5 billion. The Guardian Node onboarding client will be released no later than end of March 2019.
For the GN onboarding client, there is no minimum requirement of Theta Tokens to hold. You can hold as few or as many tokens as you want, but your TFUEL earnings will be proportional to how many Theta Tokens you are holding. While the team expects the minimum to actually run a Guardian Node to be 100,000 tokens, they will be using this onboarding program as a way to gauge the landscape of Theta tokenholders, and that minimum token requirement may change based on testing and observation.
Your uptime running the onboarding client (how consistently your computer is online) is critical; the consensus protocol requires nodes maintain consistent contact with the network. If nodes are significantly asynchronous, block production could be delayed, or the protocol could become vulnerable to an attack.
While the onboarding client is light and does NOT require specs as high as the actual Guardian Node to run, the client will take into account your hardware specs, and users that meet the actual requirements of running a Guardian Node will be noted if there is excess demand to run Guardian Nodes at launch.
More broadly, one of the benefits of running the GN onboarding program is that Theta team can evaluate which users are performing to the standards required to run a Guardian Node, which will allow those users to take priority in the first Guardian Node set upon launch in Q3. Ideally this can be done at the protocol level prior to GN launch and make the process as unbiased as possible.
The Theta web wallet has been released. PC users can access the web wallet here. The Theta Web Wallet fully supports the mainnet token swap.
Social encounters
No updates.
Finance
- Theta mainnet to integrate with Trust Wallet, the official mobile wallet of Binance.
- Huobi support for the Theta mainnet, 1:1 swap to native Theta Tokens, and 1:5 airdrop of Theta Fuel.
- OKEx Support of Theta Network (THETA) Mainnet Upgrade and TFUEL Airdrop.
- Gate.io Has Completed the THETA Snapshot and the Distribution of TFUEL.
- Notice on the Theta Token circulating supply:
With Theta Mainnet launch coming soon on March 15th, 2019 the team will be moving some Theta Tokens from their existing Theta Labs addresses to a set of new Theta Labs addresses. The tokens will be separated into multiple addresses to be used for staking by the multiple validator nodes on the Theta Network. Additionally, the team is implementing new security procedures that require them to not hold such large amounts of tokens in a single address.
Theta token dominated the mid-cap segment this month, boasting a 167 percent rise to close out February as one of the top performing cryptocurrencies in the entire market.
Network Statistics
Sliver.tv statistics:
The information is taken from Similarweb.com.
Twitter:
Theta Network (Not giving away ETH/BTC) @Theta_Network on March 11th, 2019:
Sliver.tv continues on the path to full Theta integration. Last week it hosted the SLIVER Showdown Fortnite tournament running on Theta, where each user earned TFUEL for sharing their bandwidth with other users. Users donated more than 15,000 TFUEL tokens to the tournament winners.
Roadmap
The team is excited about the impending launch of the Theta mainnet on March 15. The mainnet launch is just the beginning of their vision to ultimately become the global decentralized data delivery infrastructure for the Internet.
Q1 2019:
- Release Theta wallet for Android OS, Apple iOS, web (completed)
- Transition majority of SLIVER.tv streamers and channels to the Theta infrastructure (in-progress)
- Launch Theta Mainnet on March 15th
- Complete Theta token swap based on snapshot of existing ERC20 Theta tokens on Ethereum blockchain (1:1)
- Complete Theta Fuel distribution to existing Theta token holders (1:5)
- Update Block Explorer
- Release Guardian Node Onboarding Program light client
Q2 2019:
- Beta release universal edge cacher client
- Launch 3rd party Validator partner program
- Enhance Mesh Streaming Network scalability
- Enhance Blockchain scalability
- Launch Developer tools for Theta mainnet integration
- Beta release Android mobile SDK integration with initial partners
Q3 2019:
- Launch support for video on demand (VoD) in Theta Mesh Streaming Network
- Launch guardian node functionality and onboard initial group of community-run guardian nodes
- Beta release support for Android-based set-top boxes and smart TVs
- Introduce guardian nodes into the validator node set on rotating basis
- Launch smart contract support
Q4 2019:
- Expand Theta content delivery beyond video to support all forms of data (e.g. file updates, game patches, video ads, audio/music, etc)
2020 and beyond:
- Power global data content delivery including static and dynamic web content
- Integrate Theta data delivery into IoT devices, smart TVs, smart cars, and other data transfer-rich applications
- Optimize Theta Network to leverage new 5G infrastructure and applications
Within the Theta blockchain and streaming mesh network, there are a number of stakeholders that are vital to growing the Theta infrastructure: end users, corporate partners, and blockchain ecosystem partners. Theta team takes each of these into consideration as they plan the roadmap for growing Theta to become the decentralized data delivery network of tomorrow.
End Users & Community Members
For end users, the team’s focus is on providing a seamless way to interact with and contribute to the Theta ecosystem. These include products such as web/mobile wallets (Android/iOS), block explorer, and direct integration with partner platforms. They recognize the importance of Theta community, and invite all members to participate in the growth, governance and security of the network by running the edge cacher and guardian node software. As Theta DApp platform ecosystem evolves, these products will be integrated into each DApp platform, with cross-platform utilization being core to the value derived from using Theta products.
Corporate Partners
For corporate partners, Theta team looks to support both live streaming and video-on-demand streaming technologies. While they’ve made great headway with desktop web and mobile platforms, they will continue expanding to incorporate TV set top boxes, smart TVs, and more IoT devices. As Theta increasingly becomes integrated with more device platforms, additional data delivery use cases will also be supported — for example: game patches, dynamic web content, etc. With this progression, Theta will evolve into a generalized decentralized data delivery infrastructure.
Blockchain Ecosystem Partners
In the blockchain ecosystem, the team aim to work with partners that will provide adjacent services, which enhance Theta’s current offerings and grow network usage. Extending support to 3rd party wallets, such as integrating Binance’s Trust Wallet, Trezor, and Nano Ledger are key. Furthermore, they continue to welcome blockchain DApp projects to build on Theta. Integration of SLIVER.tv, a video platform with millions of existing MAUs, allows a number of key insights to be gained relating to token usage/mechanics, and applied to other projects.
The Theta Network itself is largely comprised of two main parts: the Blockchain ledger and the Streaming Mesh Network . Data that is relayed between nodes in the Theta Network correspond with a micropayment, and those transactions are recorded on the blockchain. At the infrastructure layer, the team has enhancements planned in the roadmap pertaining to every aspect of Theta Network’s expansion.
Theta Blockchain
There are a number of sub-components pertaining to the blockchain that are key to enhancing the robustness of the Theta Network. As utilization of Theta ramps up, implementing scalability solutions including layer 2 networks or sharding to handle transaction throughput is a primary focus. Related to consensus, enlisting reputable, reliable 3rd parties to contribute as validators and establishing the right mechanics for guardian node participation is crucial. To realize the vision of enabling a decentralized data transfer economy, smart contracts will be supported to allow Theta stakeholders to customize business rules, transactions, and create supplementary services — all powered by the Theta blockchain. Looking further into the future, a governance structure to democratize protocol administration will be implemented as the Theta Network develops and stabilizes.
Theta Mesh Streaming
The foremost priority within the mesh streaming network is increasing video bandwidth/data delivery offload to active nodes in the Theta Network. Currently, users are able to cache/relay streams as they consume video content. The team has developed an alpha build of the edge cacher that will allow users with adequate technical specs to serve as a dedicated relay node, able to serve orders of magnitude more video data than current relay methods. Additionally, applying machine learning and AI techniques to facilitate more efficient peering, considering network topology, historical grouping performance, and other variables will allow the mesh network to operate most efficiently. These are efforts are ongoing and will continue throughout the year.
Partnerships and team members
Theta reached a very exciting milestone: they successfully deployed the Theta protocol into the CJ Viewing Box, an Android-based set top TV box. The CJ Viewing Box is a product from their partner CJ Hello, the media & entertainment subsidiary of the $25B Korean conglomerate CJ Group. As part of this test, the Theta protocol was able to share video streams between the Viewing Box, mobile devices, and PC. Development will continue in the coming months toward deployment of this technology.
This is an important step in Theta’s expansion from video delivery on PC and mobile devices to all forms of data delivered to the entire universe of IoT and connected devices. The Internet of Things (IoT) market is predicted to double by 2021, reaching $520B by building on the early success of set top video streaming boxes like Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Google Chromecast and Apple. Imagine a fully connected network of smart devices contributing latent network and data resources to Theta. This collaboration with CJ Hello represents the beginning of Theta’s evolution towards the decentralized data delivery (3D) network of tomorrow.
Additionally, Theta team recently began collaborating with IoTeX, a leading project at the intersection of IoT and blockchain. Their teams originally met back in July 2018, when they jointly hosted a Korea meetup with their friends at Zilliqa, Quantstamp, and Kyber Network. Now as the Theta mainnet is set to launch on March 15th and IoTex’s mainnet soon after, the projects are discussing the many ways they can leverage their respective blockchains and domain expertise to drive adoption of their protocols.
Theta team is extremely excited to be on the cutting edge of the media and entertainment industry, pushing the boundaries of IoT, Smart TVs and data delivery — in partnership with forward thinking partners like CJ Hello and IoTeX.
Check out CJ Hello’s current Viewing services, including the Viewing Box, here, along with detailed specs of the Viewing Box.
Rumors
Twitter:
- IoTeX @iotex_io on March 12th, 2019:
“Our good friends at @Theta_Network are launching their #Mainnet in one week! Be sure to follow this game-changing project and stay tuned for future collaborations between IoTeX & Theta”
- @SLIVERtv360 on March 12th, 2019:
“Earning and donating TFUEL, buying, and sellbacks will be down for maintenance until Saturday March 16th in preparation for our mainnet launch.”
Active Reddit discussions:
Come and listen to Funtime Radio 24/7 on SLIVER
My research on Theta Network and how does it work.
Is the staking mechanism only available for guardian nodes?
Social media metrics
December 6th, 2018: Theta subreddit has moved to Theta_network. And telegram chat moved to ThetaNetwork.
Theta community continues to grow. There is constant slight growth in Theta social media channels these weeks.
Official Telegram group — discussions on testnet, price, possible partnerships, etc.
Facebook — 15–25 likes per publication, 1–5 shares.
Twitter — average number of retweets is 35–40 for one post.
Bitcointalk.org — since November 23rd, 2017. Discussion on mainnet launch, price, roadmap. Last publication — on March 13th, 2019,.
There is a slight growth in Theta community over time. The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of Theta Reddit subscribers, Twitter followers, and Facebook likes. The information is taken from Coingecko.com. Twitter stats gone to 0 due to new twitter account.
