Theta Network is a blockchain that has two tokens. THETA has a fixed supply of 1 billion. Holders stake it to run the nodes that secure the chain. TFUEL pays transaction fees and the people who run edge nodes. Theta started as a peer-to-peer video delivery network. Today it markets itself as a "decentralized GPU cloud for AI, media and rendering", sold under the name EdgeCloud. As of 25 October 2026, Theta's own explorer shows 1,000,000,000 THETA and 7,509,093,716 TFUEL in circulation.
The two tokens
THETA
- Supply: Theta's explorer API puts both total and circulating supply at 1,000,000,000 THETA. Every THETA that will ever exist is already in circulation.
- Role: Holders stake THETA to run Guardian Nodes. Theta's enterprise validators also stake THETA (see below).
TFUEL
- Supply: The explorer API reports 7,509,093,716 TFUEL, total and circulating (25 October 2026). TFUEL has no fixed cap like THETA's.
- Role: Theta's staking guide says you need "at least 1 TFUEL in your wallet to pay for the transaction fee". TFUEL is also what operators stake to run an Elite Edge Node.
How the network is secured
Theta uses layers of nodes:
- Enterprise Validator Nodes propose and validate blocks. Companies run them.
- Guardian Nodes "seal blocks and act as a check on malicious or otherwise non-functional Validator Nodes", in the words of Theta's Guardian Node documentation.
- Edge Nodes contribute bandwidth and compute. EdgeCloud runs on them.
The consensus design is a BFT protocol that aggregates signatures as they spread between nodes. Jieyi Long and Ribao Wei describe it in a paper submitted to arXiv on 12 November 2019 ("Scalable BFT Consensus Mechanism Through Aggregated Signature Gossip"). They say each node sends and receives O(log n) messages of a few kilobytes to reach agreement.
Validators named by Theta
- A Theta Labs press release dated 31 October 2025 named Google, Samsung and Sony as enterprise validators and announced Deutsche Telekom as the newest one.
- A press release dated 8 April 2026 announced that Cloudician, a partner of Alibaba Cloud International, would run an Enterprise Validator Node. The same release claims EdgeCloud offers over 80 PetaFLOPS of GPU power and has more than 40 customers. Both figures are the company's own claims.
Staking: what the official docs require
| Node type | Token staked | Stake limits | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guardian Node | THETA | Minimum 1,000 THETA | Keep at least 1 TFUEL for the transaction fee |
| Elite Edge Node | TFUEL | 10,000 to 500,000 TFUEL | Earnings go back to the staking wallet; withdrawals take about 60 hours |
Source: Theta Docs, Guardian Node Overview, Guardian Staking Process and Elite Edge Node Staking Process. The staked TFUEL can only be withdrawn to the wallet it came from.
Which Theta node could you stake for?
Answer two questions about the tokens you hold to see which node type the official docs describe for you.
Which token do you want to stake?
- THETA → next question
- TFUEL → next question
Do you hold at least 1,000 THETA plus at least 1 TFUEL for the transaction fee?
Do you hold between 10,000 and 500,000 TFUEL to stake?
- Yes → Elite Edge Node range
- Fewer than 10,000 → Below the Elite Edge Node minimum
- More than 500,000 → Above the Elite Edge Node limit
The docs set a minimum of 1,000 THETA for a Guardian Node, and you need at least 1 TFUEL in your wallet to pay the transaction fee. Guardian Nodes seal blocks and act as a check on Validator Nodes.
A Guardian Node needs at least 1,000 THETA staked and at least 1 TFUEL for the transaction fee. Below either amount, the Guardian staking process in the docs does not apply to you.
An Elite Edge Node takes 10,000 to 500,000 TFUEL. Earnings go back to the staking wallet, staked TFUEL can only be withdrawn to the wallet it came from, and withdrawals take about 60 hours.
The docs set the Elite Edge Node stake at 10,000 to 500,000 TFUEL, so a smaller amount falls below the stated minimum.
The docs cap a single Elite Edge Node stake at 500,000 TFUEL, so an amount above that is outside the stated range for one node.
This only matches your token amounts to the stake limits in Theta's docs: it does not cover rewards, hardware setup, enterprise validators or whether staking suits you.
EdgeCloud: what Theta sells today
Theta's documentation pitches EdgeCloud as "empowering AI teams around the world with unrivaled GPU price-to-performance", with GPU access for AI, video, rendering and containerised workloads on a decentralised network. It lists two service groups:
- AI: on-demand inference APIs for generative models, dedicated model hosting, containerised workloads, Jupyter notebooks, GPU nodes with SSH access, distributed training on GPU clusters, persistent storage, agentic AI and RAG-powered AI agents.
- Video: video-on-demand and livestreaming APIs, a P2P JavaScript SDK and NFT-based DRM. This is what remains of the original video-streaming design.
The EdgeCloud site lists GPU options including H200, A100, L40S, RTX 4090 and T4. It also shows per-hour prices, such as A100 80GB at $1.99 and H200 at $2.29. These are list prices on the vendor's own page and can change. The site names sports teams and esports organisations among its users.
Who is behind Theta
Mitch Liu is co-founder and CEO of Theta Labs, as stated in the October 2025 press release. Jieyi Long is the lead author of the network's consensus paper. The same press release lists Samsung, Sony, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and Creative Artists Agency as backers.
Risks worth knowing
- Concentrated validation: a small group of named companies runs block validation. Guardian Nodes act as a check on them, but the validator layer itself is not open to everyone.
- TFUEL supply grows: TFUEL has no fixed cap like THETA. Over time its supply depends on how many tokens are issued as rewards and how many are spent on fees.
- Company-reported metrics: figures for compute capacity, customer counts and partnerships come mostly from Theta Labs' own releases, so treat EdgeCloud's growth numbers as marketing until outside data backs them.
- Crypto assets are volatile. You can lose the full value of what you hold or stake.
