The online video streaming market has been dominated by centralized firms like YouTube but that may change soon. The advent of the blockchain technology has been a hallmark moment in the transformation of industries. Blockchain proposes decentralization – a concept hailed by the masses in a world where behemoth corporations exploit users a lot. The technology has many use cases – a lot of which have yet to be discovered – but at its core, it possesses the potential to be disruptive for various markets. Livepeer is a network utilsiing the same technology which is working towards altering the video streaming landscape. 

What is Livepeer?

Livepeer is an open-source protocol built on top of Ethereum’s blockchain. Being open-source, it empowers users and developers. Anyone can build on top of the network and enjoy complete freedom. Moreover, it enjoys many benefits of Ethereum’s blockchain – one of the most sought-after networks in the market. It runs through Ethereum’s protocol and the workings of node allocation is done by Ethereum’s protocol. 

Livepeer is essentially live video infrastructure. It enables anyone over the internet to broadcast videos or incorporate videos into their applications or website. The network is completely decentralized unlike its competitor YouTube. Anyone who runs the software is an owner in the network. Moreover, Livepeer incentivizes video streaming. Users who run the software earn tokens as reward for contributing their computing power and bandwidth. It has its own native token, LPT, which is utilized for transactions. 

Livepeer is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) for video transcoding. Through its video transcoding abilities, Livepeer can alter the format of videos to make them more suitable for various bandwidths and devices. It also serves as a marketplace for dApp developers who incorporate live videos and transcoding providers. 

How does it work? 

The network has two entities – Broadcasters and Orchestrators. Broadcasters submit their videos for transcoding purposes. The submitted videos are received by Orchestrators who contribute their computational power and bandwidth to perform the process of transcoding. Orchestrators charge fees in Ethereum from Broadcasters for their services. They also ensure that the videos are transcoded correctly. Anyone can become an Orchestrator by staking the native token of the network. The work is divided in orchestrators on the basis of the LPT they have staked. 

Livepeer makes use of a distinct two-layer consensus model. The transactions on the network are recorded and secured by Ethereum’s network. The second layer of consensus protocol is the Delegated Proof-of-Stake which is utilized by Orchestrators having their role changed to that of validators. 

At the time of writing, LPT stands at a price of $16.03. The price of the cryptocurrency is trending downwards with a 10% decrease in the past twenty-four hours.