The most recent Livepeer protocol upgrade, streamflow, drastically reduced the cost of paying for video transcoding even when gas prices are high on the Ethereum network. Transaction fees related to Livepeer staking, however, are still subject to the fluctuating and high gas prices caused by congestion on the Ethereum network.
Here are some important considerations to take into account when staking during times of high gas prices:
- Be aware of network congestion and recommended gas prices before submitting a transaction. Some good resources to stay on top of this are ethgassttation.info and the Ethereum Gas Price Chrome Extension.
- The most expensive staking action in the Livepeer Explorer is for claiming earnings and this is due to expensive earnings calculations performed by the contracts. Claiming earnings happens automatically any time you stake or unstake LPT.
- You do not lose your earnings if you do not claim them and it is not time sensitive UNLESS you want to stake additional LPT, move your stake or unstake.
- If you do not need to do any of the above then no action is needed on your part. Unclaimed LPT is considered staked so no need to manually claim earnings out of fear of losing out on more rewards, especially when gas prices are high.
- Note that while high gas prices are out of the control of the core team, the core team is investigating ways to optimize the earnings calculations performed by the contracts.