Building a Business Case for Blockchain Streaming Tech

If you look at the top five industries that blockchain developers want to disrupt, streaming video and music will be somewhere on the list.

The core of blockchain-based streaming companies and content-sharing firms like D.Tube, Dlive, and Theta seek to compete with giants like YouTube and Twitch with decentralized networks that give content providers much more freedom from corporate control and censorship.

They take far less revenue, and in many cases, they reward not only creators for producing but users for viewing, reviewing and recommending streamers’ work. There is also a focus on transparent promotion algorithms and tools.

The basics are pretty straightforward — peer-to-peer platforms built on blockchain and using native cryptocurrencies for payments — and some big names have tested the water. In 2020, Dlive brought (since retired) No. 1 YouTuber PewDiePie to its platform for livestreams, bringing the service 2 million new viewers in a month.

Other top platforms include D.Tube, an ad-free sharing service whose tokens can be earned by watching, sharing and commenting on videos as well as by uploading them.

Twitch-targeting Stacked is after the gamer market. It raised $13 million in August for gamer streaming content that pays creators in governance tokens that give them a say in how the platform is run, TechCrunch said.

Theta’s peer-to-peer model incentivizes decentralized hosts to put up the streaming infrastructure in exchange for the same THETA tokens viewers can use to reward creators.

“Our vision is for end-users to see themselves less as consumers of a service, and more as participants in a network that benefits everyone involved,” Wes Levitt, Theta Labs’ head of strategy told CryptoSlate in February. “With more options to distribute video through decentralized networks like Theta, creators can better control their content distribution and retain more earnings.”