When Grayscale - the company behind GBTC - announced in March 2021 that it would create new investment funds based on cryptocurrencies, most of the newly announced funds that were selected were from well-known cryptocurrencies, such as:
“Chainlink” and “Filecoin”.
But there was one new addition to many followers of the crypto market, the project: “Livepeer”.
Livepeer is an Ethereum-based decentralized service that aims to drastically cut costs for video streaming applications.
The “Livepeer” project distributes and processes video broadcasting via private computers connected to the project’s network.
Like most decentralized services, there are incentives for network participants, such as "coordinators" who transcode the video, and delegates who participate in providing liquidity for the "LPT" digital currency.
It should be noted that we touched upon the “Livepeer” project in Arab Bitcoin when the project raised an investment of $ 8 million:
The "Grayscale" investment company clearly sees the potential of this project. Here is an introductory guide to the "Livepeer" project and how it works.
What is "Livepeer"?
Livepeer is a decentralized service designed to reduce infrastructure costs for video streaming applications.
It should be noted that the "Livepeer" project is not a decentralized alternative to "Twitch" or YouTube.
Instead, the project acts as a practical behind-the-scenes solution for app creators as the project distributes the task of transcoding video - or converting it from one format to another before playback - across computers participating on the network.
The Livepeer project predicts that it can reduce resource costs by up to 50 times compared to traditional, centralized approaches to converting video codecs.
Livepeer relies on network participants, or people who have added their computers to the network, to handle transcoding requests from application developers as needed.
These individuals share their computing resources, from the CPU and GPU, along with their bandwidth - for fees paid in cryptocurrency.
"Livepeer" also calls these users "video processing miners", while preserving the mining used in the blockchain business like all other blockchain platforms (the Bitcoin blockchain).
Developers who use the “Livepeer” network and to support their video applications must pay in the digital currency “LPT” for transcoding and distribution services.
In addition, “LPT” holders can share their cryptocurrencies towards the coordinator to become authorized, thus earning a lower share of fees and rewards for participating in the network without directly participating in the transcoding process.
What distinguishes the “Livepeer” project?
Video streaming services are expensive for app developers.
And it is considered one of the hidden costs that consumers may not see or understand directly, but these costs can be transferred to them in terms of service fees, increasing advertisements or selling their data.
By reducing these costs through distributed computing, Livepeer may enable new types of video-based applications and business models.
On the other end of the equation, people can contribute their computing power and earn fees and rewards in the process.
What can be done with Livepeer?
“Livepeer” is not an end-consumer service, so users who watch transcoded videos on the “Livepeer” network may not have any indication of a subscription to the service.
For application developers, Livepeer provides a potentially cheaper alternative to centralized services, which reduces computing costs for implementing video functionality within their services.
And for network participants, there is an incentive to connect their computer to the network and / or store LPT tokens to help ensure liquidity.
How to buy LPT digital currency:
LPT digital currency is not currently available on major trading platforms such as "Binance", "Coinbase", "Gemini" and "Kraken".
However, it can be found on some decentralized trading platforms such as “UniSwap” and “Balancer”.
Livepeer Grayscale Fund:
“Grayscale” cryptocurrency-based mutual funds are stock exchange-traded investment vehicles designed to provide cryptocurrency exposure to traditional investors.
Almost every fund's price tracks the price of the cryptocurrency in question, and "Grayscale" holds a large amount of every digital currency represented in the fund.
Investors in "Grayscale" funds do not own any actual cryptocurrency, but they can reap the benefits of their increased value.
By creating the “Grayscale Livepeer Trust,” the company is betting on the future of the LPT digital currency
As of March 2021, Grayscale has $ 8.5 million in LPT digital currencies