Theta Mainnet 3.0: Introducing TFUEL Staking and Burning
We’re thrilled to announce the next generation Theta blockchain: Theta Mainnet 3.0 projected to launch in the Spring 2021 will introduce TFUEL staking and burning. The full Mainnet 3.0 whitepaper can be found here.
Background
Theta Labs launched its native blockchain purpose-built for peer-to-peer video delivery in the Spring of 2019. With Mainnet 2.0 in May 2020, we introduced Guardian nodes, a revolutionary, two layer consensus mechanism to complement Enterprise validators run by a premiere set of global partners including Google, Samsung, Binance, Blockchain.com, and Gumi.
Following Mainnet 2.0, the capability of the Theta Edge Node network was significantly enhanced with the release of Theta’s peer-to-peer “EdgeCast” technology. This new fully decentralized technology stack adds the ability to capture live video, transcode it in real-time, cache and relay live stream video data to users globally — all through Theta’s P2P edge network run by thousands of community members. Not a central server or service is used in this pipeline.
Additionally, the long-awaited Turing-complete smart contract support will be enabled on the Theta Blockchain Mainnet on December 10, 2020. Smart contracts open up a whole new set of user experiences and new attribution models for DApps built on the Theta network. For example, leveraging smart contracts on the Theta network could enable fully digitized item ownership, innovative payment-consumption models, transparent royalty distributions, trustless crowdfunding mechanisms, and much more. This provides an additional layer of social and economic interactivity that supplements the core functionality of video and data delivery, and significantly increases the engagement and retention of platform users.
Mainnet 3.0 Overview
Building on this foundation, Theta Mainnet 3.0 introduces two protocol innovations:
- Upgrading to Elite Edge Nodes will enable “Uptime Mining”, the tokenization of Internet bandwidth and availability. Users will be able to stake TFuel to an edge node to upgrade it to become an Elite Edge Node. Elite Edge Nodes can 1) earn TFuel through their staked TFuel, and 2) earn additional TFuel from video platforms for delivering higher performance. New 2%-4% TFuel inflation for uptime mining for edge nodes will be introduced in addition to the existing 5% TFuel rewards for validators and guardians. In the process of engaging with platform partners this year, it became clear that to support an existing platform that may see over 1 Billion logged in users per month or even a smaller partner with tens of millions of subscribers, requires an edge delivery network that needs to scale to tens and hundreds of thousands of nodes globally to deliver premium service levels, uptime and performance across all devices.
- New TFuel burning mechanism will add a cost for using Theta edge network, namely a “network fee” as a balancing force against new TFuel supply. Since Theta network launched two years ago we recognized that there is significant value accrued to video platform partners in the form of content delivery network (CDN) cost savings, increased user engagement, and revenues resulting from shifting infrastructure costs to user rewards. All these benefits accrue to the platform partner at effectively zero additional cost. With Theta 3.0, a minimum of 25% of each TFuel payment to the edge network will be burned at the protocol level, effectively becoming a cost for using the network. In the long-run as Theta’s edge network becomes more widely adopted, this could meaningfully reduce the supply of TFuel.
At the application level, with Turing-complete smart contract support, potentially more temporary sinks for TFuel can be introduced, such as liquidity pools for Uniswap-like AMM DEX, asset collaterals for MakerDAO-like stable currency, etc. With both sources and sinks in place, TFuel circulation can be adjusted dynamically to adapt to actual demand. We believe this can maximize the utility value of TFuel and benefit all stakeholders of the Theta ecosystem.
For the full detail of Theta Mainnet 3.0, please read the Theta Mainnet 3.0 whitepaper available here. Updates on Mainnet 3.0 progress will continue through the protocol upgrade process in Spring 2021, and as we ramp up the campaign until launch day. We look forward to the Theta community joining in the development of the protocol and providing essential feedback and support along the way!
