Launching the Livepeer Foundation

Governance
1

Launching the Livepeer Foundation

Hi everyone,

We are excited to announce the launch of the Livepeer Foundation (LF).

The mission of the LF is to steward the long-term vision, ecosystem growth, and core development of the network.

Following the creation of the core network architecture by Livepeer Inc and the formation of the community-governed treasury, the launch of the LF marks the start of a brand new chapter in the progressive decentralisation of the Livepeer project.

In this next chapter, The LF’s role is to ensure that, over time, the Livepeer project builds a thriving ecosystem of founders, applications and gateways and a highly-performant, capable secure network, which is truly accountable and governed by token holders.

If successful in its mission, all ecosystem stakeholders will be empowered to participate in the strategic direction of the future of the Livepeer project, and easily contribute to the execution of the collective vision.

We now ask all ecosystem stakeholders to review our initial proposal and encourage everyone to ask questions or express feelings of support or concern.

Why the Livepeer Foundation, Now?

We believe that the Livepeer project is now uniquely positioned to scale its reputation as the world’s leading open video infrastructure network and as one of the most important decentralised infrastructure projects globally.

Momentum is building:

  • Livepeer Inc and emerging applications (Daydream, Streamplace, Eliza) drive new demand on the network focused on realtime video AI.
  • Orchestrators are hungry to contribute time, capital, and compute capacity to develop and scale the network, and want a clearer path to make meaningful contributions.
  • Open-source video & AI developers are entering the ecosystem looking for structured, impactful ways to contribute to Livepeer’s mission.
  • Special Purpose Entities (SPEs) are forming in greater numbers to build public goods for the Livepeer network.
  • Token holders want to see the onchain treasury deployed more strategically to drive more utility and earning potential from the token.

Nevertheless, amid this growth, the Livepeer ecosystem faces some core challenges:

  1. Lack of Strategic Coordination Across the Ecosystem - Though there is a focus on video infrastructure and real-time video AI, the Livepeer project lacks a clear, community-aligned strategic roadmap and coordination mechanism across stakeholders.
  2. Centralized Core Development and Limited Pathways for Contribution - Core network development has historically relied heavily on Livepeer Inc, with limited pathways for broader community and external contributors to participate meaningfully.
  3. Over-Reliance on a Few Demand Sources - The network’s demand side is overly dependent on a small number of gateway providers, creating risk and limiting scalability.

We’re at a pivotal moment in Livepeer’s history—one where clarity of vision, structured coordination, and diversification of demand growth can accelerate the trajectory of the Livepeer project.

The moment calls for an entity which can think both short- and long-term. Objectives must be in years and decades; while always being mindful of short-term objectives, such as product market fit for real-time video AI.

What is the Livepeer Foundation?

The LF is a credibly-neutral entity that can accelerate the ecosystem and empower the community to actively contribute to and shape Livepeer’s long-term future. This includes further decentralizing the project, establishing clear contribution pathways, and ensuring the core software stack remains lean and extensible for developers and founders.

The LF is a vehicle for ecosystem participation, focused on:

  1. Strategy and Vision: Publishing a long-term roadmap to enable the progressive decentralisation of the Livepeer project through ecosystem-led Advisory Boards, to recommend and prioritise SPEs and support token holders to more strategically allocate capital from the onchain treasury.

  2. Core Development: Coordinating core ecosystem research and development SPEs, shepherding development on critical protocol and network upgrades, and leading ecosystem tooling and documentation.

  3. Ecosystem Growth: Attracting new developers and founders to build on, contribute to and participate in the Livepeer network, in a way that drives demand-side growth and diversity, and strengthens the long-term sustainability of the network.

Over the next 6-12 months, the LF will work with Livepeer Inc to drive development and adoption of real-time video AI capabilities in pursuit of product market fit.

As the network matures, the LF will focus more broadly on ecosystem-wide growth for all stakeholders to encourage the sustainable development of the Livepeer project as a whole.

1. Strategy & Vision: Introducing Advisory Boards

The Livepeer Foundation facilitates the formation of Advisory Boards and holds them accountable to their function.

Advisory Boards are a mechanism to provide a clear pathway for ecosystem stakeholders to participate in strategy setting. They will try to ensure that the whole community has near-complete symmetry of information as it relates to opportunities within the ecosystem.

Advisory Boards are small, domain-specific groups consisting of Livepeer core contributors, representing different parts of the Livepeer ecosystem.

The Advisory Boards are formed every 6 months to build and update a coherent roadmap for the Livepeer project in conjunction with the broader community. Their aim is to provide a strategic vision that is then synthesised and published by the Livepeer Foundation.

The exact step-by-step process is still to be determined, but will follow roughly:

  1. Survey: gather feedback from the community on what they would want to prioritise.
  2. Analyse: review, consolidate and prioritise SPEs focusing on project-critical problems.
  3. Recommend: provide token holders with suggested SPEs to fund for next 6 months.
  4. Recruit: support SPE formation alongside GovWorks
  5. Advise: provide connections and guidance to SPEs as they deliver on their mission.

Importantly, Advisory Boards do not make capital allocation decisions themselves. Token Holders still have to vote on each SPE when the team has been formed and the proposal has been submitted onchain.

The initial Advisory Boards will be focused on four key areas of the Livepeer project: Network, Governance, Demand, and Markets.

In the coming weeks, we will be publishing a follow-on piece, explaining in detail how Advisory Boards will be formed, the different stakeholders involved (LF, Inc, Orchestrators, GovWorks, Token Holders) and the timeline for the first advisory boards.

2. Core Development: Building A Scalable, Resilient Network

The Livepeer Foundation will lead the coordination of core ecosystem research, development and tooling.

The LF aims to bring accountability to a fast-moving, decentralising ecosystem, helping new and existing teams stay aligned while acting independently.

As a neutral steward, it can ensure the onboarding and engagement of new technical SPEs through developer meetings and mediate product conflicts through an ecosystem-wide lens.

The LF will lead the implementation of the technical roadmap, by creating and managing core engineering operations. Its role is to first align on the strategy with the Advisory Boards; and then to ensure the collaboration between SPEs and Livepeer Inc on the actual execution.

Importantly, The LF will also enable core technical SPEs to look beyond short-term GTM goals—laying the groundwork for the ecosystem to welcome in a broader community of open-source developers and video / AI researchers as the network scales.

To ensure development SPEs are fully equipped and empowered to deliver high-quality work to benefit the network, the LF will initially own the following ecosystem components:

  • Livepeer Explorer - give the ecosystem access to transparent, real-time network data to make informed-decisions about solutions and upgrades to work on.
  • Documentation - maintaining up-to-date resources across core protocol and network functions to ensure the best developer experience.
  • Key Network Software - work closely with SPEs & Livepeer Inc to maintain, and advance the network’s most critical infrastructure with transparency and accountability.

As the LF matures and the Livepeer project decentralises further, the scope of ownership may increase to ensure that core network repositories are either entrusted to the LF or community-governed.

The LF will work closely with Livepeer Inc and Orchestrators at the Advisory Board level to create a constructive meeting point to determine the technical roadmap of the Livepeer project.

The partnership will evolve and blossom as the network matures. In the next 6-12 months, the principle is: Inc pioneers the network, the LF will coordinate development SPEs to stabilise it. The LF, working with Livepeer Inc, will enable the broader community to actively contribute to the success of the Livepeer vision.

3. Ecosystem Growth: Diversifying Demand At Scale

The Livepeer Foundation will lead the attraction and onboarding of new developer and entrepreneurial talent to drive growth in diversified demand.

The LF’s thesis is that it’s critical to diversify demand across a multiplicity of highly-performant gateways to avoid risks of demand concentration, sustainably grow the network and establish Livepeer’s market dominance.

The LF will deploy capital into different programs which focus on different initiatives to increase the talent density of the Livepeer project:

  • Build Talent Pipeline For SPEs: recruit new and existing ecosystem developers to contribute to and create SPEs and experiment with core Livepeer technology.
  • Accelerate Realtime AI Video Community Growth: partner with Livepeer Inc to create engaging bootcamps and hackathons to onboard new AI creators and developers.
  • Create A Founder Platform: attract video- and AI-focused founders to build with Livepeer through mentorship, funding (credits + grants) and technical support.
  • Market the Livepeer Project holistically - ensure awareness for the Livepeer project and demand for the Livepeer token across web3-focused ecosystems by shining a light on the opportunities for network participation to various market stakeholder groups.

It is important to note: a key aspect of diversifying demand is to ensure the Livepeer project has a highly-performant and easy-to-use gateway, functioning for both video and video AI.

In the near term, the LF’s primary focus will therefore be to accelerate the Livepeer project’s product market fit with real-time video AI, by contributing funding, program support and core partnership building.

Once the network has achieved product market fit, the LF will focus on driving adoption at the gateway-level. Working with core development SPEs, the LF will drive the upgrades and adoption of Livepeer’s core gateway technology.

Short-Term Objectives

For 2025, the LF will focus on forming its legal entity and internal operations, as well as establishing practices across the different pillars:

  1. Strategy & Vision: facilitate the formation of and recommendations of the first advisory boards, as well as ongoing advisory to SPEs.
  2. Ecosystem Growth: unlock funding for real-time video AI programs, creating a clear talent pipeline for both developers and founders.
  3. Core Development: structure and align core development SPEs with Livepeer Inc, setting up developer operations and opportunities to contribute via the bounty program.

Foundation Structure

The LF will be a non-profit Cayman Foundation Company. We opted for the structure as it has a number of key features that make it suitable entity because it is:

  • An Industry Standard: a tried-and-tested structure and the de facto entity for decentralised protocols, such as Arbitrum, ENS, and dydx.
  • Ownerless & Flexible: it can support a variety of governance structures (including onchain) which can be amended after formation.
  • Global: it is regulated under Cayman law which provides further geographic decentralisation of the project.

The Livepeer Foundation will be funded by a transition of the Grants Node. The Foundation will operate its own node infrastructure and seek delegated stake from other sources as well as its own seed funding.

The Foundation will be operated in pursuit of the goals outlined earlier in this by a small team:

  • Rich O’Grady - Executive Director, Full-time - Vision; Core Roadmap; Advisory Boards; Orchestrator relations; Partnerships, Programs
  • Rick Staa - Technical Director, Full-time - Development; Technical Roadmap; Research; Ecosystem Data
  • Ben Perez - Operations Lead, Full-time - Growth; Running Programs, SPE Formation; FinOps; Reporting; Grants Ops
  • Joseph Birch - Comms Lead, Part-time - Comms; PR; SPE & Advisory Board Editing; Proposal Writer

The intention is to keep this team small and to, where possible, use it to support further growth in talent and capability using the mechanisms around the onchain treasury. We will provide further detail on the details of the Foundations governance in due course.

Launching The Foundation: What’s Next?

While we hope this post has been inspiring and informative, this proposal is a first statement of intent.

In the coming weeks will will explain in detail core aspects of the Foundation and its interactions with the network, including:

  • How the Advisory Board will be formed and function.
  • How the Foundation operates and is governed.
  • Coordination of development teams between Inc. and the ecosystem (SPEs).
  • How new & existing ecosystem stakeholders can participate.

On behalf of all the founding team, we would invite all ecosystem stakeholders to step forward and comment on any and all of the above. We are open to receive feedback, though cannot guarantee any amendments.

Please feel free to comment publicly here in the forum or reach out to any of the core team directly on Discord.

Thanks for your time and we look forward to getting your feedback.

Rick, Ben, Joseph and Rich

12 Likes
2

Hi Rich,

Good luck to the members of the foundation in this new path and I wish you guys success…

I have got a couple questions. Maybe they were mentioned in the presentation already and I missed so I apologise now if they were already answered in the meeting:

  1. What happens with Inc’s Lpt?
    There is this Grant Node Orchestrator, right? I always thought that Orchestrator and its stake was controlled by Inc; was that correct? So are that O and its tokens (along with their voting power) going to be handed over to the foundation? With multi-sigs and all?

  2. What happens with social media accounts?

  3. I have no idea how it works but when an LIP is approved and smart contracts need to be modified… “Multi-signature” people do that right? So that will be the members of the foundation now, is that correct?

  4. Doug was once asked in the wcc: What do the big investors think about such and such, and he replied “They say we trust you guys, we want Livepeer to succeed so go ahead and do what you think is the best for Livepeer” or something like that. So Doug had 1-1 relationship with the “big investors” of the protocol.
    Are there any plans for you guys to be introduced to them? What was their reaction to all of this?

Thank you so much…

1 Like
3

For those that missed it, you can listen to the recording of the Foundation call in Discord here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UnwlI-v87k9_fknZ35kfxbl1_8Nw7ftE/view

1 Like
4

Hi @obodur

Thanks for the vote of confidence and the follow up questions.. In answer to each one:

[EDITED: the below section has been amended]

The 2 current solutions we are exploring are:

(A) The Grants Node simply is transitioned over to the LF;

or

(b) A new Foundation Node is created .

  1. The Grants Node, owned by Inc, winds down it’s operation.
  2. The LF spins up a new Foundation node
  3. A sizeable donation of Grants Node current funding will be donated to the Foundation.
  4. A majority transfer of Inc’s stake will be transferred to the Foundation node to generate rewards.
  5. A portion of these rewards will be unbonded either monthly or quarterly to pay for operating expenses + programs.

We will release an exact statement on this in the coming months, led by @b3nnn and @rickstaa.

For the short term (2025), Inc will remain in control of core accounts:

  • There will be no change in the structure of social media accounts.
  • The LF and Inc’s Growth team will work closely together on content calendars.
  • TBD: The LF will explore / consider set up of its own accounts + marketing assets.

For the medium term (2026), LF and Inc will explore the transition:

  • Core marketing assets (social media accounts / .org) transition to LF
  • Creation of new application marketing assets (e.g. similar to Daydream)

Still a lot TBD, but conversations have already started. How this next year evolves from a real-time video AI perspective is key to dictate exact timelines.

No. It may involve 1 LF member, but the LF will not solely be responsible.

The LF’s role will be to facilitate and participate in the Governance Advisory Board, which will likely recommend the creation of a more robust i.e.g larger Security Committee. This Security Committee will be signers of the multi-sig and guardians of the protocol.

I would invite @dob to answer this in full, perhaps further down the line. Similarly, the official answer to that question from the LF will involve with time.

My 2 cents based on internal LF conversations:

The LF will look less at the core investor relationships with Livepeer Inc; instead, our aim is to focus on the whole Orchestrator community and maintain an open door for communication. I then see it is the responsibility of the Orchestrators to manage their respective Delegators, and voice any concerns.

Alternatively, some larger Delegators may come forward, introduce themselves and ask questions in the forum or give feedback directly. We, of course, would then welcome these conversations as they arise.

I hope this answers your question.

3 Likes
5

This is a bold and strategic move that will not only strengthen the Livepeer ecosystem but also position it at the forefront of the AI-powered future reshaping tech and society.

Livepeer isn’t just any protocol—it’s one of the OGs of Web3!

From pioneering decentralized video transcoding to now evolving with the demands of AI, it’s a shining example of agility, vision, and innovation.

With a community full of passionate, talented builders, we can’t wait to see what comes next for this foundational protocol that’s growing hand-in-hand with the Web3 movement.

Congrats @honestly_rich @rickstaa and all the new team at LF! :clinking_glasses:

3 Likes