Staking is the most trending topic in the cryptosphere. Apparently, delegated proof of stake has become the new method of earning passive income.
staking calculator proves to a better way of validating transactions as compared to Proof of Work and are gradually becoming the standard for most of the public blockchain infrastructures. Therefore, everyone is gradually shifting towards the PoS consensus.
DPoS algorithm allows users to elect delegates to stake their tokens on their behalf and earn annual rewards of 4% - 15%, in return.
Livepeer Staking Guide
What is Livepeer(LPT) ?
Livepeer is an open platform for decentralized live video broadcasting, wherein broadcasters can transcode and distribute their live video streaming using the Livepeer network, to any device. Livepeer develops peer to peer live video streaming network protocol on the Ethereum blockchain. The Livepeer alpha network was launched on May 1, 2018 on the Ethereum mainnet.
Each round of the Livepeer protocol lasts for about 21-22 hours depending on the time Ethereum takes to solve a block.The average time for solving a block is 13 seconds and each round consists of 5760 blocks. The Livepeer network is in round 1334 currently as of May 3 2019, which is the 1333th round since the launch of the network. Token holders or delegators elect transcoder nodes to stake their coins and the transcoders perform video transcoding. Once the round is completed, broadcaster fees and new LPT are distributed, the active transcoder pool is reconstructed as per the total delegated stake. Transcoders are penalized for any malicious activity.
The team behind Livepeer(LPT)
Livepeer believes in open source code and is open to contributions from people with diverse backgrounds and skill sets.
The company being based in New York, the Livepeer team contributes from different locations and uses technologies such as JavaScript, Solidity, Golang, open source video tools such as ffmpeg and smart contract platforms.
The launch of Livepeer(LPT)
On May 1, 2018, the livepeer alpha network was launched on the Ethereum mainnet.
Core Principles of Livepeer
Keeping in mind the requirements of DApp developers, Livepeer follows the below core principles:
Scalability - The Livepeer P2P network is highly scalable allowing users to scale to any size without any failure points. The network optimizes encoding quality and performance of delivery.
Low Cost - The livepeer network uses crypto economic incentive methods to reduce the transcoding costs as compared to cloud providers.
Decentralized - The decentralized network allows all participants to shape Livepeer and leaves no control in the hands of a single company or individual.
Staking Livepeer Tokens(LPT)
Staking in Livepeer is done through bonding with a transcoder on the platform. Transcoders can be selected based on the statistics on the dashboard and delegate LPT to the chosen transcoder, to earn rewards and fees.
This consensus model is known as the DPoS - Delegated Proof of Stake. DPoS enables token holders to participate in staking by delegating any amount of tokens to transcoders elected by them.
To delegate LPT, go to https://explorer.livepeer.org/transcoders to access a list of active transcoders on the Livepeer network.
The Dashboard
The dashboard may seem a little confusing for those who are new to the network, so here’s a simple way of understanding all that information. The Livepeer transcoder dashboard provides statistics of the past 30 rounds on the reliability of each transcoder to call the reward during each round. If a transcoder misses a reward call, it directly impacts the delegators as they miss their inflationary LPT for that round. This feature has made the transcoders more vigilant, reliable and focused for not missing the reward call.
The reward cut is the share of the transcoders from the reward call, the fee share is the amount shared with delegators, received for transcoding and distributing live videos, Price in GWEI is the amount charged by each transcoder for transcoding and total stake depicts the LPT staked with transcoders by delegators.
What are livepeer Transcoders ?
Transcoders within the livepeer network convert input streams of videos into different formats for broadcasters and participate in Truebit based transcoding verification protocol. Currently, the Livepeer network supports 25 active transcoders in each round. The transcoders offer inflationary rewards and broadcasting fees proportionate to their delegated stake with every round to members who stake their LPT to them. The active set of transcoders is reset after every round based on the total delegated stake.