So, you've got some Livepeer Tokens... what next?

Delegating
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Congratulations!

You are a Livepeer Token (LPT) holder!

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This means that you are now part of the project’s crypto-economic story, and can participate in the project’s Delegated-Proof-Of-Stake protocol.

This article will help you understand what it means to be an LPT holder, what you can do with your tokens, and what the benefits are for you.

If you use MetaMask to manage your account containing your LPT, then this article might be helpful.

Token Mechanics

So, first of all, it’s worth explaining a few properties of Livepeer Tokens.

  1. When the network launched at the end of April 2018, 10,000,000 LPT were created.

  2. New LPT are constantly being created, and shared with active nodes. Nodes are computers running Livepeer software as part of the network.

    These new LPT are often called the “inflationary reward”.

  3. At the time of writing, there were a little over 10,097,981 LPT in circulation. Follow this link to see how many LPT there are right now.

What this means

When new LPT are created, the total number of LPT in circulation increases.

This means the value of the LPT that you own is actually decreasing compared to the value of the network as a whole.

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Figure 1: illustration of how new LPT being created reduces the value of the LPT that you own compared to the overall network

These are your options

Here are some options for what you can do next with your Livepeer Tokens:

  1. Keep your LPT in your wallet.

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    This would mean that the LPT that you hold would gradually become worth less compared to the overall value of the network, and you would effectively be missing the opportunity to gain more LPT.

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    On the plus side, you would retain full and complete control over the LPT.

  2. Stake your LPT in the network.

    You can stake your LPT in the network by “bonding” them to a specific node.

    If you bond to an active node, this node will share some of its revenue with you. This will typically include some of the new LPT that are created every round.

    You will still own the LPT when they are bonded to the node, and you can unbond them at any time.

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    • Reward Cut is the amount of the new LPT received by the node which will kept by the Transcoder.

    • Fee Share is the amount of the fees received by the node for processing video that will be shared with you an other token holders.

    You can find out more about some of the nodes you can bond to in Livepeer’s forum page about campaigns being run by transcoders in the network.

    You can stake your tokens by following these instructions.

  3. Run a Transcoding Node in Livepeer’s network*.

    You can find out much more about this in the Livepeer Transcoder Megathread

  4. Share your LPT with others.

    You are free to exchange your LPT for something else, or simply pass it on to somebody else.

    Maybe you know someone who would want them more than you do.

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