Hello Livepeer Community, I’m Andrew from Shtuka Research. I’m sharing here a report commissioned by the Livepeer Foundation with the goal of identifying data and information needs in the Livepeer ecosystem, evaluating the extent to which those needs are met by existing resources, and highlight areas where high-impact improvements are possible.
The report is presented as a GitHub repository with an executive summary and discussion of findings in the main README file. I’ve reproduced the executive summary below for the convenience of the Livepeer community.
Scope
The scope of our model is the “Livepeer Protocol” — that is, the network of GPU compute service providers (Orchestrators) and smart contracts that manage service provider registration, payments, token issuance, and voting — and all entities that interact with it directly. This definition excludes “end-users” who consume Livepeer via a Gateway. It also excludes operations that entities might reasonably be expected to handle internally, or be private, idiosyncratic, or specialist. Examples of the latter include Foundation internal operations, tracking marketing KPIs, and sourcing local hardware or DC vendors for Orchestrator deployments.
Executive summary
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We developed and populated a model for the data needs of seven roles — Foundation, Gateway, Investor, Delegator, Orchestrator, Delegate, and SPE — in the Livepeer ecosystem. (Some people have asked us about a “Builder” role — our approach to classifying builders is discussed in /roles/README.md.) By exploring the decision scenarios of each role and queries that arise therein, we evaluated the extent to which data needs are met by existing resources using a simple scoring system and, where possible, proposed paths to improvement.
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The following action items are assessed as likely to have immediate impact.
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Gateway onboarding. All demand for Livepeer compute flows through Gateways, so any data services or documentation that can facilitate Gateway onboarding is of high priority.
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Gateway documentation and marketing materials should clearly explain the role and opportunity of running a Gateway.
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Performance, reliability, and capacity data are essential for building trust in Livepeer compute as well as to assist Gateways in developing job distribution strategies. Existing Gateways can gather this data, but it must be aggregated into a single location and made available. The community could engage with Livepeer Inc. to help develop public goods infrastructure to handle this.
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Job tagging and requirements advertising. Improve Protocol UX by connecting Gateways with Orchestrators with capabilities satisfying Gateway-specified requirements and provide valuable metadata to all parties for granular tracking of supply and demand.
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Livepeer Treasury. Develop Treasury strategy and budget, and incorporate it into a Treasury dashboard to facilitate Delegate decision-making. This will immediately improve the DAO’s ability to deploy capital and help SPEs put together realistic proposals. It is probably not technically demanding.
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Investor onboarding.
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Token marketing. Accelerate onboarding of LPT investors by clarifying the function and legal status of LPT voting and LPT cashflows. Publish network revenue dividends to LPT holders. Provide a portal to third-party analysis and trackers that illuminate LPT’s positioning within the broader DePIN/web3/cloud market.
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Staker onboarding. Accelerate onboarding of LPT stakers by highlighting summary views of optimal yields as well as dilution rates for holders of liquid LPT. Offer forecasts and Orchestrator risk assessments to aid in developing staking strategies. Integrate staking information into third-party trackers for side-by-side comparison against other ecosystems and greater visibility.
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Orchestrator onboarding. Build a dashboard for demand reports and forecasts, with breakdowns by job tag, capability requirements, and Gateway. Maintain up-to-date documentation on Orchestrator hardware requirements.
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Items whose impact is likely to be felt over a longer term or higher granularity items:
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Productionise or integrate Livepeer Tools. The Cloud SPE’s dashboards fulfil important data needs but the website is often down. Livepeer Foundation could take ownership of these and give them an upgrade or integrate them into a new explorer.
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Delegator view. Track Delegator events to aid the Foundation in understanding the investor population and Delegates in developing strategies to attract more stake.
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Protocol research portal. Illuminate current protocol research activity, research roadmap, and upgrade calendar to aid in Delegate voting on LIPs and recruit protocol researchers.
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Next steps
We invite the participation of the wider community in fleshing out the data needs map. What questions have come up in your interactions with Livepeer that don’t fall easily into our classification? Have we missed any existing resources? What presentations of the data would help with your decision-making?
Questions and PRs are welcome! You can reach me in this thread or in Livepeer Discord: my username there is awma and I’m mainly hanging around in the Protocol channels.
I will leave it to the Foundation to comment on how they expect to make use of the findings of this report.