Partnering with YouTube star PewDiePie brought DLive 2 million new viewers in April

Blockchain streaming service DLive’s bet on PewDiePie has paid off with a big jump in viewers and streamers.

DLive saw its audience grow by 67% and the number of content creators using the DApp to reach an audience double in April, the same month it announced the controversial Swedish YouTube star chose it for his livestream broadcasts.

With more than 95 million subscribers, Felix Kjellberg is YouTube’s top streamer, but he has a reputation for offensive comments including anti-Semitism and racism. He gained more unwanted attention in March when the Christchurch, New Zealand mass shooter yelled “subscribe to PewDiePie” on the YouTube livestream of the rampage in which he killed 26. Kjellberg said he was “sickened” by the comment and the incident.

While Kjellberg’s main platform remains YouTube, his decision to bring his livestreaming content to DLive was a huge boost for the fledgling streaming service, which is a DApp on the Lino blockchain. Kjellberg already has 225,000 followers on DLive.

“DLive’s organic growth has been very strong since day one,” said Wilson Wei, Lino Network’s co-founder. “It’s truly been a ‘word of mouth’ effort, but our partnership with Felix helped turbo charge our growth.”

DLive’s average monthly audience grew from 3 million to 5 million monthly active users in April, the company said in a statement on May 14. The number of active content creators doubled to more than 70,000 in the same month.

Kjellberg said he was attracted to the platform by its revenue model, which does not take any cut from the revenue streamers generate, compared to the 45% taken by YouTube. Streamers get 90.1% of the revenue they generate, with the remaining 9.9% going to a pool shared by holders who lock their LINO cryptocurrency tokens in their accounts. LINO point sell for $0.012.

“DLive is a place where instead of competing against each other, it benefits creators to support one another,” said Wei, in announcing that Kjellberg had joined the platform. “With no platform cuts, we incentivize everyone to create the highest quality content for viewers. PewDiePie has always been a fierce advocate for the value that creators bring with their hard work, time, and effort, and he believes in DLive’s vision…. We’re proud to have PewDiePie help us lead this charge.”

In addition, DLive announced a new viewer reward system, in which streamers collect LINO points based on follower engagement. These go into a Treasure Chest, which streamers can award to followers during livestreams. Winners must claim their awards within 30 seconds to ensure they go to engaged viewers.

Edited at 5:23 pm on 05/16/19 to add quote from Wilson Wei and correct price of LINO tokens.