SLIVER.tv, an esports entertainment platform, has announced a $20 million (£14,293,200) deal has been reached for Theta tokens in a private presale. The aim of this is to improve the available bandwidth for esports streams, leading to better video quality.

The presale sold out in less than 48 hours, and included the following companies: DHVC, I Blockchain Capital, Nirvana Capital, aelf, Synapse Capital, Sierra Ventures, and the Venture Reality Fund. It was led by Danhua Capital and overseen by Steve Chen, Co-founder of YouTube, and Justin Kan, Co-founder of Twitch.

Dovey Wan, Managing Director of Danhua Capital, spoke on the sale: “We’ve been impressed working with Mitch and the entire SLIVER.tv team since we led the company’s Series A round of financing. It’s clear they’re on an exponential growth trajectory and getting huge traction in the esports streaming community, their underlying video delivery technology under development makes all this possible.”

“We’ve been in the crypto space since 2013 and are among the earliest supporters of DFINITY, Brave and Orchid Labs. Content delivery networks by nature can leverage decentralization and blockchain technology very well,” Wan continued. “Today’s blockchain technology is like the internet in 1996, I think Theta has the opportunity to become the dominant decentralized network that powers all video streaming for the next 20 years.”

Mitch Liu, Co-Founder and CEO of SLIVER.tv and Theta Labs also had his say. “Our vision is to create the next generation esports and video streaming ecosystem by democratizing today’s centralized content delivery networks. We’re thrilled to have the support of so many blockchain and esports experts, we truly believe blockchain technology will disrupt esports and the broader video and media industries.

“Video content accounts for nearly 80% of all internet data, it’s a huge problem and a multi-billion dollar opportunity that Theta is looking to democratize,” Liu concluded. Theta tokens are earned by those who login to the platform every single day, they can then be used as gifts for users’ favourite entertainers. In the near future, they’ll offer the ability for users to buy in-game goods.

Over one million Theta tokens have been earned and distributed so far, and SLIVER.tv has explained that they will, one day, be suitable for advertisers and brand sponsors to fund ad campaigns and creators.

Esports Insider says: What SLIVER.tv believes Theta tokens can offer is an exciting prospect, it’s just now a matter of time before we can see if they’ll really be welcomed into esports and video streaming.