One of the core value propositions of decentralized technologies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum is often stated as censorship resistance. Some have gone so far as to say that it’s the only value proposition that matters and determines whether a decentralized system can be advantageous relative to a centralized one, because otherwise the extra costs and complexity of using such systems wouldn’t be worth it relative to efficient centralized alternatives. With the current events unfolding in the world, and the centralized platforms responses to these events being to ban users and limit what may be communicated, many have looked to the set of decentralized technologies, collectively known as web3, to enable trustless platforms which make it impossible for this type of selective censorship to occur. Of course the chorus of financially motivated stakeholders in the projects see this as an opportunity for growth, attention, and “web3’s moment”, however I’d caution many parties here — the project builders themselves, their communities, their financial backers, and their users to tread cautiously. …
Livepeer’s video streaming infrastructure requires a global network of node operators contributing their compute and bandwidth to video encoding tasks. A grant proposal was recently approved to run an experimental bonus LPT incentive program that rewards node operators who perform well on the performance leaderboard. It’s targeting node operators running setups that can transcode video faster than realtime on the Livepeer network, which likely means those with GPUs. This program will reward 21,000 LPT over the next three weeks to node operators.
What do you need to know to participate?
- Run an orchestrator/transcoder node on the Livepeer network.
- Score at least 3.0 on the performance leaderboard over a 7 day period in any one region (US, EU, Asia). …
The Livepeer explorer now includes a performance leaderboard for node operators. Check it out, and learn more about it in this post and the FAQ.
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One of the most critical things for the Livepeer community to address in the coming months is to ensure that there’s better alignment between those doing useful video transcoding work on the network, and the rewards that are earned through protocol token rewards and fees. …
A little over four years ago Eric Tang and I began diving deeply into the world of blockchain enabled technologies, and were inspired by the web3 vision of a more decentralized, user-sovereign internet infrastructure. We published many of our early ideas and open source development work at dappbench.com, and laid out the vision and technical research for Livepeer — a protocol, incentive model, and open source software which could enable an open video infrastructure that was far more scalable, reliable, and cost effective than the centralized services that existed in the web2 world.
In the years that we’ve been at work, we’ve accomplished a lot with Livepeer: An alpha network was launched, ownership was distributed to the early network operators through contributory participation, a community of active stakeholders was formed, Ethereum scaling issues were addressed through a series of upgrades including a new micropayments mechanism, governance was decentralized amongst the community of stakeholders, a commercial offering to focus on onboarding demand to use the video streaming infrastructure was launched at Livepeer.com, and users have begun to realize the value of the network for their live streaming applications. …
App Highlight: File.video — Decentralized Video Hosting For Everyone. Built on Livepeer and Filecoin
Today we are excited to showcase a web3 application called File.video, which aims to provide decentralized video hosting for everyone.
The functionality of this app is simple but powerful. Users can choose a video file to upload, and they’ll receive back a playback URL from which the video can be shared and viewed. Behind the scenes the video is transcoded into different bitrates to enable playback on varying connection speeds, and served over the HLS protocol for a reliable viewing experience across device types.
What is of particular note however, is that this application was built on web3 infrastructure — leveraging Livepeer’s software and decentralized network for video ingest and transcoding, and the newly launched Filecoin network for persistence and content delivery. …
Livepeer is a video infrastructure network that enables developers to access capabilities, such as video transcoding, which are necessary to create live streaming applications with high reliability and affordable pricing, at scale. The Livepeer Token (LPT) is an Ethereum ERC-20 token issued by the network to provide security, route work, and incentivize active participation in the various roles required for the network to operate.
For an introduction to Livepeer at a high level, check out this great visual primer. For a full overview of the details behind these incentives, view The Livepeer Whitepaper and the Streamflow Scaling Update Paper, which also touch on many areas related to delivering a high quality video infrastructure, beyond just the token based economic incentives. …
The Livepeer video infrastructure network uses the Ethereum blockchain in order to secure work, settle payments, and incentivize people all around the world to provide their infrastructure for video encoding work. One of the promises of the Streamflow scaling update back in January, 2020, was that as Ethereum became more expensive to use, Livepeer video infrastructure itself would not become more expensive.
As this post is being published in September, 2020, the costs to use Ethereum are at an all time high — almost 500 times higher than they were at the genesis of Livepeer. And while broadcasting costs on Livepeer do remain low, the cost to operate infrastructure on Livepeer, or to stake Livepeer token, are not fully immune to these incredible increases in prices. …
We are excited to share that the first community governance poll run within the Livepeer ecosystem has passed. After a 10 day voting period, the community overwhelmingly voted to ratify the decentralized governance process which will be used to shape the future of the Livepeer protocol and network.
This is a big milestone, as it means that all tokenholders, operators, and users of the Livepeer network now have clear process, rules, and tools to use in order to suggest, debate, approve, and execute updates to Livepeer.
With over 72% of all active stake participating in the vote, the proposal passed with 99% of participants voting in favor. …
Today is a big milestone in the continued decentralization of the Livepeer protocol. The first governance poll is open for voting, and all tokenholders have the ability to participate. This post will give you the high level details you need to know in order to understand what‘s being voted on and how to participate in this poll and in the ongoing governance process.
Quickstart Summary
- The first poll opens today and voting will be open for a 10 day period.
- You can vote at https://explorer.livepeer.org/voting or using the updated command line interface.
- In this first poll, tokenholders are deciding whether to ratify the process and tools that will be used to conduct Livepeer decentralized governance going forward. This sets a clear social understanding of how protocol changes get proposed, discussed, voted on, and executed. …
When we started the Livepeer project over three years ago, we knew that video, and internet enabled streaming, would play an increasingly important role in society. With the rise of accessible bandwidth, cameras attached to every mobile device, and better applications emerging, we saw that video could be a real enabler for enhanced participation in the world economy. It would be an important communication tool, it would be increasingly used for learning and education, and it would continue to entertain. …
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