What happened: YouTube star Felix Kjellberg, known as PewDiePie, will stream exclusively on DLive, a US-based decentralized live-streaming platform founded by Chinese entrepreneurs. Under the partnership, he will stream weekly on the decentralized application (dapp) starting Apr. 14. In his first livestream on the platform, PewDiePie will donate up to $50,000 in Lino Points (the currency used on Lino blockchain that DLive runs on) to other creators on the platform to encourage more uptake.
Why it’s important: Decentralized content-streaming platforms like DLive are attracting more attention in the live-streaming community as they usually take a smaller cut of the donations and earnings from streamers compared with mainstream platforms like YouTube and Twitch. PewDiePie is YouTube’s biggest individual creator with more than 93 million followers, and has a reputation for making offensive and controversial comments. Shortly before announcing the partnership with PewDiePie, DLive banned contentious YouTube celebrity Alex Jones, the host of an alt-right conspiracy theory show, from its platform.