In 2017, as centralized Short Video Platforms such as Douyin and TiTok became popular, a reform experiment for the video field was quietly underway in the decentralized encrypted world. As a solution for the real-time media layer in the decentralized development (web3) stack, Livepeer was proposed. Unlike regular video platforms, Livepeer itself is not a video platform, but a technical protocol, mainly a solution for application developers. It is a protocol for users to transcode videos before playing them.
Simply put, livepeer is a LIVE transcoding platform. They do not provide LIVE or video, but use the GPU and bandwidth of miners to perform video transcoding work, thereby reducing transcoding costs .
After several years of development, Livepeer has become a decentralized and highly scalable real-time streaming media transmission protocol. Livepeer is about to be launched on The First platform, bringing broader cooperation space to users from both ecosystems.
What is Livepeer?
With the popularity of video streaming applications, enterprises are facing huge cost pressures, among which transcoding costs are particularly prominent. Taking Alibaba Cloud Ali Cloud Aliyun as an example, the average transcoding cost of a high-resolution video LIVE is as high as 40 yuan per hour, which means that enterprises need to invest hundreds of millions of RMB every year for this alone.
In order to meet this challenge, Livepeer emerged and is committed to innovating the video processing process from the underlying technology to reduce the operating costs of enterprises. Through its proprietary transcoder, Livepeer has built a unique network that allows users to easily contribute their computing resources (such as GPUs and bandwidth) to the network and receive LPT tokens as rewards. This model is similar to Bitcoin miners using computing power for mining, but here, participants are called "video miners".
For developers, Livepeer's transcoding network provides a cost-effective option. The fees they need to pay are similar to traditional services such as Alibaba Cloud Ali Cloud Aliyun, but the payment form is more flexible - paid through LPT tokens. This not only reduces costs, but also promotes the reasonable allocation of resources within the network, as the fees will be directly rewarded to video miners who contribute resources.
In the existing decentralized development stack (Web3), although there are corresponding solutions for key layers such as file transfer and payment, the solutions for capture, interface, transcoding processing, and service layer of LIVE videos are still insufficient. To address this industry gap, Livepeer has launched its innovative product - Livepeer Media Server (LPMS), an open-source media server implementation specifically designed for LIVE videos.
LPMS provides all the specific functions required for DApp developers and existing broadcasters to build LIVE functionality in their applications. As an independent application, developers can easily build real-time applications based on LPMS, thereby accelerating the development process and reducing technical barriers.
However, traditional scaling methods may be inadequate when facing large-scale LIVE demands. To solve this problem, Livepeer has proposed a more advanced idea: when every node on the Livepeer network runs LPMS, the economic incentives built into the protocol will encourage these nodes to contribute their computing processing power and bandwidth for video transcoding and distribution.
This self-expanding, pay-as-you-go service network brings great convenience to developers. They only need to send LIVE streams to the Livepeer network to enjoy a series of services such as automatic scaling, payment, and media hosting, without worrying about the complex details of the underlying implementation. This not only reduces development costs, but also improves system stability and scalability, bringing revolutionary changes to the LIVE video industry.
The Livepeer protocol defines how various participants in the LIVE ecosystem can participate in a secure and economically reasonable manner. The two main areas that the protocol needs to address are actually distributing real-time video from the source to a large number of consumers in a high-performance and scalable manner, and encouraging economic incentives to participate in the network with security and game theory. At a high level, the protocol aims to:
Livepeer's two-layer consensus system ensures the security of LPT token transactions and the fair distribution of newly generated LPT. The underlying blockchain (such as Ethereum) protects LPT transactions and provides the same security as Proof of Work or Proof of Stake. The second-layer consensus system is based on Delegated Proof of Stake (DPOS), managed by Livepeer smart contracts, and is used to distribute newly generated LPT.
In the second layer consensus, the transcoder plays the role of a validator, which needs to perform transcoding work and verify the work results. Users can delegate stock to the transcoder, which needs to call on-chain functions within specific time intervals to verify the work. The protocol rewards fees and newly generated tokens to compliance transcoders, and reduces stock for bad actors. The verification results are recorded on the chain through Truebit, ensuring transparency and indisputability.
After OpenAI released Sora on February 16, 2024, Livepeer announced that the community will work hard to introduce these features into the Livepeer network in the coming months as part of the artificial intelligence video project, officially starting a new narrative of AI video. Three development stages are planned in the Livepeer AI roadmap.
Phase 1: AI Subnet Design and Stability (Completed)
The first phase of the subnet Proof of Concept design and the initial joining of existing Livepeer Orchestrator node operators ended on May 1st, and more than 20 high-performance AI Orchestrator nodes are already active.
Phase 2: AI subnet optimization (in progress)
This phase focuses on improving the quality of service provided to AI Orchestrator and AI Gateway node operators. The goal is to enhance network supply by expanding the range of compatible GPUs (low VRAM GPUs and server GPUs), reducing container loading time, and handling edge cases. The work of this phase also includes collaborating with selected design partners through the new artificial intelligence video launch program to improve the entry experience for application developers.
Phase 3: Livepeer mainnet and AI network expansion (Q3 2024)
It is expected to launch the mainnet in the third quarter of 2024, providing high-quality experiences for AI developers and equipped with tools and Software Development Kits. The network expansion will allow for efficient execution of custom models and workflows, secure running of custom container code, flexible inference requests to reduce developer costs, and establish a method for verifying the authenticity of coordinators and ensuring content sources.
In addition, Livepeer has introduced a staking feature and will launch a staking and related data dashboard in June to further promote the adoption of LPT staking.
II. Livepeer Token Economics
LivepeerToken (LPT) is the protocol token of the Livepeer network. Token holders can bind the token to the transcoder to perform work on your behalf and earn new tokens and earnings every day. The Value of Livepeer Where: Project During development, developers can add LIVE and on-demand videos.
Content creators can access diverse and rich LIVE content, including videos, games, coding, entertainment, and educational courses; Livepeer nodes can create LIVE content and earn LPT by transcoding video formats; LIVE creators can perform quality management while controlling infrastructure costs.
The total supply of LPT tokens is 22,906,951, and the circulating supply is 21,164,655 LPT. In Livepeer, new tokens are minted and distributed to delegates and coordinators in each round.
The round here refers to the unit measured in Ethereum blocks, where one round is equal to 5760 Ethereum blocks. The average block generation time in Ethereum is 14 seconds, which means that a round lasts about 22.4 hours. The current inflation rate of LPT is 0.03165%, and the total supply is 28,904,976.38 Livepeer tokens. The next round will reward a total of 9,264.04 newly minted Livepeer tokens to all participants, corresponding to a value of about 70,000 US dollars. The annualized inflation rate corresponding to the current inflation rate is about 12%.
Simply put, livepeer is a LIVE transcoding platform. They do not provide LIVE or video, but use the GPU and bandwidth of miners to perform video transcoding work, thereby reducing transcoding costs .
After several years of development, Livepeer has become a decentralized and highly scalable real-time streaming media transmission protocol. Livepeer is about to be launched on The First platform, bringing broader cooperation space to users from both ecosystems.
What is Livepeer?
With the popularity of video streaming applications, enterprises are facing huge cost pressures, among which transcoding costs are particularly prominent. Taking Alibaba Cloud Ali Cloud Aliyun as an example, the average transcoding cost of a high-resolution video LIVE is as high as 40 yuan per hour, which means that enterprises need to invest hundreds of millions of RMB every year for this alone.
In order to meet this challenge, Livepeer emerged and is committed to innovating the video processing process from the underlying technology to reduce the operating costs of enterprises. Through its proprietary transcoder, Livepeer has built a unique network that allows users to easily contribute their computing resources (such as GPUs and bandwidth) to the network and receive LPT tokens as rewards. This model is similar to Bitcoin miners using computing power for mining, but here, participants are called "video miners".
For developers, Livepeer's transcoding network provides a cost-effective option. The fees they need to pay are similar to traditional services such as Alibaba Cloud Ali Cloud Aliyun, but the payment form is more flexible - paid through LPT tokens. This not only reduces costs, but also promotes the reasonable allocation of resources within the network, as the fees will be directly rewarded to video miners who contribute resources.
In the existing decentralized development stack (Web3), although there are corresponding solutions for key layers such as file transfer and payment, the solutions for capture, interface, transcoding processing, and service layer of LIVE videos are still insufficient. To address this industry gap, Livepeer has launched its innovative product - Livepeer Media Server (LPMS), an open-source media server implementation specifically designed for LIVE videos.
LPMS provides all the specific functions required for DApp developers and existing broadcasters to build LIVE functionality in their applications. As an independent application, developers can easily build real-time applications based on LPMS, thereby accelerating the development process and reducing technical barriers.
However, traditional scaling methods may be inadequate when facing large-scale LIVE demands. To solve this problem, Livepeer has proposed a more advanced idea: when every node on the Livepeer network runs LPMS, the economic incentives built into the protocol will encourage these nodes to contribute their computing processing power and bandwidth for video transcoding and distribution.
This self-expanding, pay-as-you-go service network brings great convenience to developers. They only need to send LIVE streams to the Livepeer network to enjoy a series of services such as automatic scaling, payment, and media hosting, without worrying about the complex details of the underlying implementation. This not only reduces development costs, but also improves system stability and scalability, bringing revolutionary changes to the LIVE video industry.
The Livepeer protocol defines how various participants in the LIVE ecosystem can participate in a secure and economically reasonable manner. The two main areas that the protocol needs to address are actually distributing real-time video from the source to a large number of consumers in a high-performance and scalable manner, and encouraging economic incentives to participate in the network with security and game theory. At a high level, the protocol aims to:
- Real-time video distribution: Allows any node to send and request real-time video in a high-performance and scalable manner, supporting multiple formats and bit rates.
- Economic incentives: Participants are encouraged to contribute processing power and bandwidth to video transcoding and distribution services, and are compensated based on their workload.
Livepeer's two-layer consensus system ensures the security of LPT token transactions and the fair distribution of newly generated LPT. The underlying blockchain (such as Ethereum) protects LPT transactions and provides the same security as Proof of Work or Proof of Stake. The second-layer consensus system is based on Delegated Proof of Stake (DPOS), managed by Livepeer smart contracts, and is used to distribute newly generated LPT.
In the second layer consensus, the transcoder plays the role of a validator, which needs to perform transcoding work and verify the work results. Users can delegate stock to the transcoder, which needs to call on-chain functions within specific time intervals to verify the work. The protocol rewards fees and newly generated tokens to compliance transcoders, and reduces stock for bad actors. The verification results are recorded on the chain through Truebit, ensuring transparency and indisputability.
After OpenAI released Sora on February 16, 2024, Livepeer announced that the community will work hard to introduce these features into the Livepeer network in the coming months as part of the artificial intelligence video project, officially starting a new narrative of AI video. Three development stages are planned in the Livepeer AI roadmap.
Phase 1: AI Subnet Design and Stability (Completed)
The first phase of the subnet Proof of Concept design and the initial joining of existing Livepeer Orchestrator node operators ended on May 1st, and more than 20 high-performance AI Orchestrator nodes are already active.
Phase 2: AI subnet optimization (in progress)
This phase focuses on improving the quality of service provided to AI Orchestrator and AI Gateway node operators. The goal is to enhance network supply by expanding the range of compatible GPUs (low VRAM GPUs and server GPUs), reducing container loading time, and handling edge cases. The work of this phase also includes collaborating with selected design partners through the new artificial intelligence video launch program to improve the entry experience for application developers.
Phase 3: Livepeer mainnet and AI network expansion (Q3 2024)
It is expected to launch the mainnet in the third quarter of 2024, providing high-quality experiences for AI developers and equipped with tools and Software Development Kits. The network expansion will allow for efficient execution of custom models and workflows, secure running of custom container code, flexible inference requests to reduce developer costs, and establish a method for verifying the authenticity of coordinators and ensuring content sources.
In addition, Livepeer has introduced a staking feature and will launch a staking and related data dashboard in June to further promote the adoption of LPT staking.
II. Livepeer Token Economics
LivepeerToken (LPT) is the protocol token of the Livepeer network. Token holders can bind the token to the transcoder to perform work on your behalf and earn new tokens and earnings every day. The Value of Livepeer Where: Project During development, developers can add LIVE and on-demand videos.
Content creators can access diverse and rich LIVE content, including videos, games, coding, entertainment, and educational courses; Livepeer nodes can create LIVE content and earn LPT by transcoding video formats; LIVE creators can perform quality management while controlling infrastructure costs.
The total supply of LPT tokens is 22,906,951, and the circulating supply is 21,164,655 LPT. In Livepeer, new tokens are minted and distributed to delegates and coordinators in each round.
The round here refers to the unit measured in Ethereum blocks, where one round is equal to 5760 Ethereum blocks. The average block generation time in Ethereum is 14 seconds, which means that a round lasts about 22.4 hours. The current inflation rate of LPT is 0.03165%, and the total supply is 28,904,976.38 Livepeer tokens. The next round will reward a total of 9,264.04 newly minted Livepeer tokens to all participants, corresponding to a value of about 70,000 US dollars. The annualized inflation rate corresponding to the current inflation rate is about 12%.