Theta: Four investment funds poke USD 100 million – new share price record
Theta has – once again, it has to be said – made a new all-time high. Looking at the latest news from the THETA front, the ongoing share price rally is no coincidence.
For months, the Theta Network has been rallying from one all-time high to the next. At the time of going to press, Theta is trading at 14.50 US dollars (USD) and has thus once again set a new price record. The latest price jump has now propelled THETA into the top 10 cryptocurrencies with Bitcoin Profit highest market capitalisation. The market capitalisation of the total 1,000,000,000 tokens is now over 14 billion USD. In the process, the streaming network is proving immune to the sideways trend that has recently gripped the rest of the crypto market. The rally, however, is no coincidence, but is underpinned by bullish news.
Why is Theta rising?
On 23 March, it was announced that four institutional investors had joined the Theta network to jointly run an enterprise validator node. The investment funds Sierra Ventures, Heuristic Capital, VR Fund and GFR Fund have poured a total of 100 million US dollars into THETA for this purpose. This is according to a blog entry by Theta Labs, the company behind the decentralised video streaming protocol. In the case of Sierra Labs, this is a repeat offender:
We were one of the first funds to recognise Theta’s potential and invest in the company’s seed round in 2016. The massive progress Mitch and the entire team have made since then confirms our confidence in Theta Network, and we continue to support their groundbreaking blockchain technology by participating as enterprise validators. We look forward to growing 100-fold as Theta transforms the media and entertainment industry.
Ben Yu, Managing Partner at Sierra Ventures, was quoted as saying.
In total, the network currently has 14 enterprise validator nodes. Operators include Google, Samsung and Binance, among others. At the beginning of March, Theta Labs still controlled 7 validator nodes – then Sony Europe, another high-profile player, joined the network and established parity between internal and external validators. The subsequent share price rally was spurred on by another piece of positive news in mid-March. Theta Labs was granted a second US patent for its decentralised streaming protocol.
With the latest investment by Sierra Ventures and Co., external validators have the upper hand for the first time. An important step for the intended decentralisation of the network.
Theta: Course and network grow rapidly
The enterprise validators, meanwhile, cannot act arbitrarily, but are monitored by a rapidly growing network of edge nodes and guardian nodes.
Guardian nodes have to accumulate 1,000 theta in order to be allowed to participate in the network. In return, they receive TFUEL, the utility token in the Theta network.
Operating Edge Nodes also makes it possible to earn TFuel – even without a Stake. Edge node operators make their internet bandwidth (especially upstream) available to help distribute video streams.
