We’re excited about the impending launch of the Theta mainnet on March 15. It’s the culmination of the immense development efforts and logistical planning that our team has poured into the project since launch. While we take a moment to savor this achievement, we’d like to continue looking ahead. In many respects, the mainnet launch is just the beginning of our vision to ultimately become the global decentralized data delivery infrastructure for the Internet. With that in mind, we’ll take a look at the progress that’s been made so far and give you a comprehensive preview into upcoming milestones we have planned for this year, and beyond.

Our roadmap at a glance:

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. We take each of these into consideration as we plan our roadmap for growing Theta to become the decentralized data delivery network of tomorrow.

End Users & Community Members

For end users, our focus is on providing a seamless way to interact with and contribute to the Theta ecosystem. These include products such as our web/mobile wallets (Android/iOS), block explorer, and direct integration with partner platforms. We recognize the importance of our community, and invite all members to participate in the growth, governance and security of our network by running our edge cacher and guardian node software. As our 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, we look to support both live streaming and video-on-demand streaming technologies. While we’ve made great headway with desktop web and mobile platforms, we 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, we 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, we 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 (decentralized data delivery). Data that is relayed between nodes (e.g. users) in the Theta Network correspond with a micropayment, and those transactions are recorded on the blockchain. At the infrastructure layer, we have enhancements planned in our 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. We’ve 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.

We hope this provides you with a preview of the direction of Theta’s growth. Our vision is grand — to become the internet’s global decentralized data delivery network — and we know realizing that vision will take disciplined execution and exacting focus. We’re thrilled to have all of you along with us for our journey. Thanks for all your support.

Cheers,

The Theta team