Theta protocol development has been going full steam in the past months and we’d like to share with you our accomplishments and roadmap for this exciting year. The best news is that we’ve had some great partners come on board with us that we will collaborate closely with to define the architecture, specifications, and use cases of the Theta protocol. This co-innovation ensures that our protocol has immediate utilization upon launch and can be built on top of by other DApps and services when our Mainnet becomes available. We’re not playing around here and are well on our way towards achieving a decentralized streaming network!

In short, 2018 will be a monumental year. We will launch the Native Theta network on our new blockchain and current Theta ERC-20 tokens will be exchanged 1:1 for Theta blockchain tokens by the end of Q4 2018. In the spirit of keeping our awesome supporters informed, we’ll get into some of the main milestones of our project and explain why these steps are important.

First off, we’ve made significant progress in laying the groundwork for scaling up various components of the P2P mesh streaming network throughout the year.

We’ve accomplished so far:

Introducing Theta Tokens on SLIVER.tv; users are already able to earn Theta Tokens through meeting consecutive day login milestones, and are able to donate Theta Tokens to streamers

Implementing PoS blockchain prototype based off Tendermint

Block explorer v0.1, pulling transactions in realtime from the blockchain

Design and initial implementation of an off-chain micro transaction protocol

Mesh streaming prototype built on top of WebRTC, HTML5/Web player, easy to integrate and deploy; showed significant CDN usage reduction in a sandbox environment

Designed and architected the interaction protocol between the blockchain and the streaming player client for peer nodes to transparently and efficiently receive token rewards by providing the stream relay services to other nodes

Looking forward, these are the major milestones we aim to meet:

End of March — THETA-SLIVER Integration

Beyond SLIVER.tv users earning Theta Tokens right now, we’re adding Theta Tokens into Grand Raffles and have items only available for purchase with Theta Tokens — think skins, crates, and real exclusive merchandise. We’ll be running some very generous promotions to celebrate Theta’s utility and want the entire community to join in.

Early Q2 — Minimum Viable Internal Testing Environment

We plan to complete the initial implementation of the PoS blockchain prototype based off Tendermint. This includes focusing on supporting multiple validators on different machines for our consensus mechanism, and conducting scalability tests. In parallel, we will implement the off-chain micro transaction protocol to potentially support tens of thousands of off-chain micro transactions per second. We will publish new technical documentation which will cover the recent design updates in-depth as we make progress.

Mid Q2 — PoC Demo

Through an interactive demo, users have the ability to simulate in a local sandbox how peer nodes in the Theta protocol cache and relay streams to other nodes. In this demo, users will be able to spin up new nodes and understand the role of caching nodes and viewing nodes, as well as simple token staking concepts. This should be an early representation of the mechanics and user experience of what users can eventually expect from a DApp built on the Theta protocol.

Late Q2 — Blockchain Explorer

The web tool will allow users to browse and search the contents in individual blocks, providing information related to block history, transactions history, and users’ addresses. The initial implementation will have the basic necessary features of a block browser. With future versions, we’ve considered the idea of open sourcing the code and giving our supporters a chance to get involved, perhaps implementing UI/UX enhancements, data visualizations, and additional explorer features.

Late Q2 — Initial Testnet

P2P network code in this phase will be done in parallel with the P2P Mesh Streaming work.

We will collaborate with and invite early partners to start building on top of the protocol. We’ll deploy Testnet clones for these partners to give them an environment to begin prototyping. Pertaining to security, we will do a comprehensive review around protocol design, cryptography design, and implementation of 3rd party libraries to ensure hardening of our network. Security considerations such as DDoS protection will also be reviewed.

Early Q3 — P2P Mesh Streaming

Currently, the mesh streaming prototype is built on top of WebRTC, HTML5/Web player, which is easy to integrate and deploy. Initially, we’ve shown significant CDN usage reduction in a sandbox environment.

On the mesh network side, we are working on developing packet routing algorithms, peer group formation methods, stream pulling methods and scaling up P2P sharing from small scale locally-limited boundaries to geographically disparate locations. Resource usage tracking and rate limiting mechanisms will also be developed. Testing will be done on the Sliver.tv platform with a dedicated test channel that users can volunteer to join and help test. On the client-player side, we will implement the interaction protocol between the blockchain and the streaming player client for peer nodes to transparently and efficiently receive token rewards by providing the stream relay services to other nodes.

Late Q3 — Wallet Client

The wallet will be a secure, multi-platform wallet for sending and receiving Theta protocol-related currency. Users will be able to view a history of the transactions they have made. Front end UI and API wrapper will be done and prototype testing of wallet will follow.

Late Q4 — Public Devnet / Mainnet

We will launch the Native Theta network on our new blockchain. Current Theta ERC-20 tokens will be exchanged 1:1 for Theta blockchain tokens.

With our integration of Theta Tokens on Sliver.tv, we’ve unlocked the first of many utility use cases for Theta Token and allowed users to get a taste of how it’s like to transact with Theta Tokens. In the future, tokens may be used to reward users who play an instrumental role in helping us test certain features of our mesh network, prior to launch. Of course, when we launch our Mainnet, DApps will be free to build on top of our protocol, which will further provide more utility to Theta Tokens.

We’re excited to continue development and move closer to making the Theta Network a reality. Thanks to our community for joining us on this journey and we’ll be back with more updates soon!

The Theta Team