From Theta, Livepeer to Audius, why decentralized streaming has gained market favor

Author: Gu Yu
In the blockchain market dominated by DeFi and NFTs, the decentralized streaming sector cannot be considered hot, but representative projects like Theta, Livepeer, and Audius have become focal points in the crypto industry at different times and have received backing from many traditional industry giants, including Google.
Previously, in August, Audius partnered with the world's largest video application TikTok, allowing artists to export their songs already on the platform to TikTok with one click. This cross-industry collaboration caused the project's token to double in a short period, attracting significant attention from the industry.
Although Livepeer is not well-known, it has long received strong support from DCG and has become one of the few trust funds established by Grayscale Investments under DCG, alongside leading cryptocurrencies like ETH, XRP, and FIL.
Theta is famous for its astonishing price increase, with a rise of up to 1630% since 2020, briefly entering the top 10 by market capitalization this year, and currently ranking 23rd. Additionally, Google became an external validator node for Theta last year, which significantly boosted the project's visibility.
So, why have decentralized streaming projects garnered so much interest from these giants? How do they specifically operate? In this article, Chain Catcher will use projects like Theta, Livepeer, and Audius as examples to elaborate on the logic and potential of the decentralized streaming sector.
1. What is Streaming
According to Wikipedia, streaming refers to a technology and process that compresses a series of multimedia materials and sends them in segments over the internet, allowing audio and video to be transmitted in real-time for viewing without the need for users to download all files in advance. Video and audio are the most typical forms of streaming, with platforms like Netflix and Spotify being the most representative streaming platforms.
However, during the development of these streaming platforms, as data transmission volumes have increased and the market dominance of platforms has strengthened, the related costs of streaming platforms have also surged, with more and more profits shifting to the platform side, negatively impacting other roles to varying degrees.
Decentralized streaming attempts to address these issues by using blockchain technology and token economic models to transform the transmission and processing of video, music, and other streaming materials. However, although they are all in the decentralized streaming sector, projects like Theta, Livepeer, and Audius have different business models and focus on solving different types of problems.
2. Theta
Theta is a relatively early decentralized streaming project that primarily addresses the slow content loading speed under high resolution faced by the media industry, providing both technical and economic solutions.
Specifically, Theta aims to improve video network speed using distributed nodes (CDN technology). Through a token incentive mechanism, the project encourages users to contribute their spare bandwidth and computing resources, allowing their devices to become cache nodes in the network. Users watching videos can obtain video content from the nearest cache node instead of fetching it from the CDN server base station.
This setup not only reduces the bandwidth costs for video content distributors but also improves the quality of streaming and user experience through the principle of proximity to nodes.
At the same time, Theta employs a multi-BFT consensus mechanism design, including up to 30 enterprise validator nodes, community-operated guardian nodes, and edge nodes formed by user participants, with enterprise nodes including well-known companies such as Google, Blockchain Ventures, Samsung, Sony, Binance, and Gumi Cryptos.

Additionally, Theta has launched application layer products based on its underlying blockchain network, such as the esports entertainment platform theta.tv, which provides 24/7 real-time streaming content from games like Fortnite, League of Legends, and CSGO. Users can support streamers on THETA.tv using TFuel through donations and subscriptions, as well as open themed boxes to win various game equipment. Other application layer products using the Theta network include live streaming products like CONTV, GFUEL, and SGOUTTV.
3. Livepeer
In contrast to Theta, Livepeer, established in 2017, is positioned as a decentralized video transcoding network, similar to a solution for application developers, which transcodes videos before users play them, significantly reducing the costs of video streaming applications.
For streaming applications, one of the main costs is the video transcoding cost. For example, with Alibaba Cloud, the average transcoding cost for a high-definition live video can reach 40 yuan per hour.
Livepeer attempts to solve this problem through an LPT-based token incentive model. Users can contribute their computing resources to the network through proprietary "transcoders," and the Livepeer network assigns tasks to users' GPUs, rewarding them with LPT tokens upon completion of transcoding.
At the same time, ordinary users can earn rewards by staking LPT tokens, and the staked tokens can vote for a transcoder. At the start of each consensus round, the network selects the group of transcoders with the most votes to execute tasks, and they receive a corresponding number of newly issued tokens. If a transcoder is found to be malicious, a portion of the staked tokens voting for that transcoder will be deducted.
Stakers who vote for transcoders can earn a portion of the transcoders' earnings. Therefore, stakers need to find reliable transcoders to vote for to avoid penalties, while transcoders need to establish a good reputation to ensure future support from stakers.
According to data from Livepeer's official website, the current total number of nodes for the project is 99, with a total of 466.4M transcoded videos and total earnings valued at $179,000, with the capacity to support access to over 70,000 GPUs, providing sufficient capability to transcode all real-time video streams combined from Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube.
4. Audius
Audius is a decentralized streaming platform focused on music, primarily facilitating direct transactions between music listeners and creators, eliminating the influence of streaming platforms and record companies, and ensuring that music creators can earn most of the revenue from their works' streams, allowing everyone to freely share, monetize, and listen to any audio.
Music creators can publish songs with 320kbps quality for free on the Audius blockchain, generating immutable, timestamped records protected by an incentivized decentralized node network. This blockchain essentially serves as a "database" for the platform's music content, which other music service providers can access and index.
The blockchain is maintained by node operators, who can operate a "discovery service" (an application programming interface) on the protocol, which essentially indexes the Audius blockchain and music content for listeners to discover new works released by artists on Audius. Node operators can earn rewards in AUDIO tokens when the discovery service they provide runs well and the target audience genuinely purchases the creators' content.
Users can stake AUDIO to protect the platform and, in return, receive network fees, governance weight, and unlock features such as artist tokens and badges.
Additionally, besides the project's website, the Audius protocol has designed many different content distribution channels to help music creators profit through streaming, individual track purchases, artist memberships, record collectibles, etc. The previous collaboration with TikTok is a typical example of channel expansion.
Currently, Audius offers 90% of the revenue from listening to original music artists' works to creators, with the remaining portion rewarded to node operators. The top five artists by weekly play count can also receive token rewards.

According to official data, as of early August, the Audius platform had over 100,000 artists, including well-known artists like Skrillex, Weezer, deadmau5, Diplo, and Odesza, with over 5 million monthly active users.
Overall, these decentralized streaming projects either focus on reducing operational costs in the industry or transforming the economic relationships within the industry ecosystem. They represent one of the few directions where crypto technology and its economic models are widely and deeply applied in traditional industries, warranting further thought and attention.