Transcoder Campaign: Chainflow Transcoder

Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder Update - 20 December 2018

Welcome to the Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder update. I write these updates toward the middle and end of each month. We stayed in active mode at #13 in the top 20 transcoder list.

  • Provide input to the notification user flows Robbie Bent’s team is developing

  • Current LPT Stake - 50422.70 LPT, of which 1101.67 or 2.18% are self-bonded

  • LPT Stake as of last update on 6 December 2018 - 47995.09 LPT

  • % change - 5.06% increase

  • Called all reward rounds

All LPT I earn gets is bonded back to our transcoder. My gratitude to everyone’s who’s delegated their LPT and trust to me to date!

(You can join us by bonding your LPT here.)

Here’s what I did since the last update -

  • Called all but one reward round. I missed round 1199. The round changed from 1199 to 1200 just as I was about to finish troubleshooting the issue. The issue is resolved. I immediately called round 1200.

  • Restarted the transcoder as necessary, when the reward round wasn’t called automatically

  • Updated the supplemental Livepeer Transcoder List I maintain

  • Submitted this Livepeer grant proposal to complete the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) Transcoder integration

My priorities over the next two weeks are to -

  • Call all rewards!

  • Kick-off the ENS Transcoder integration project

  • Continue following and commenting on the Streamflow proposal

Here’s my short-list of near-term to-do’s -

  • Complete the new transcoder build-out that I started a few weeks ago to support

  • Automated monitoring and

  • Running Livepeer as a systemd service

  • Test the new transcoder, prior to migration

The planned migration will have no impact on existing delegates. The bonding process won’t change, either.

Catch you next week. If you have any questions in the meantime, add a comment here or catch me in the Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder Telegram channel.

P.S. Want to join us? Please do by bonding your LPT here.

My gratitude to whomever bonded 7000 LPT to us on Christmas Day :pray: :christmas_tree:

Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder Update - 11 January 2019

Welcome to the Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder update. I write these updates toward the middle and end of each month.

We are currently in active mode at #13 in the top 20 transcoder list.

  • Current LPT Stake - 61879 LPT, of which 1400 or 2.3% are self-bonded
  • LPT Stake as of last update on 20 December 2018 - 50423 LPT
  • % change - 23% increase
  • Missed one reward round

All LPT I earn gets is bonded back to our transcoder. My gratitude to everyone’s who’s delegated their LPT and trust to me to date!

(You can join us by bonding your LPT here.)

Here’s what I did since the last update -

  • Called all but one reward round. I missed round 1220.

As I shared in the Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder Telegram channel, I check rounds daily. That day I checked in the morning, then let more than 24 hours passed before checking again. As a result, I missed the round window. Again, I’m very sorry for this. It underscores the need for me to automate the work and setup monitoring, which I intend to do over the next few days.

The livepeer software has also been crashing, due to a bug I reported to the team a while ago. This means I often have to login manually to restart the process and call the round.

  • Restarted the transcoder as necessary, when the reward round wasn’t called automatically
  • Updated the supplemental Livepeer Transcoder List I maintain
  • Reviewed Livepeer’s response to this Livepeer grant proposal to complete the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) Transcoder integration I submitted

My priorities over the next two weeks are to -

Here’s my short-list of near-term to-do’s -

  • Complete the new transcoder build-out that I started a few weeks ago to support

    • Automated monitoring and
    • Running Livepeer as a systemd service
  • Test the new transcoder, prior to migration

The planned migration will have no impact on existing delegates. The bonding process won’t change, either.

Catch you next week. If you have any questions in the meantime, add a comment here or catch me in the Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder Telegram channel.

P.S. Want to join us? Please do by bonding your LPT here.

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Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder Update - 6 February 2019

Welcome to the Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder update. I write these updates toward the middle and end of each month.

We are currently in active mode at #13 in the top 20 transcoder list.

  • Current LPT Stake - 67507 LPT, of which 1776 or 2.7% are self-bonded
  • LPT Stake as of last update on 11 January 2019 - 61879 LPT
  • % change - 9% increase
  • Called all reward rounds :tada:

All LPT I earn gets is bonded back to our transcoder. My gratitude to everyone’s who’s delegated their LPT and trust to me to date!

(You can join us by bonding your LPT here.)

Here’s what I did since the last update -

  • Called all reward rounds :tada:
  • Upgraded the Geth node I run to increase the transcoder’s reliability
  • Figured out why the transcoder software was crashing and fixed it
  • Got the transcoder running as a systemd service

The last two feel like a relief. They’ve been lingering on my to-do list for a while.

Running as a systemd service increased reliability. It also sets the stage for automated reporting and monitoring. Stay tuned for more on this :+1:

My priorities over the next two weeks are to -

Here’s my short-list of near-term to-do’s -

  • Set-up automated monitoring, with alerts
  • Keep an eye on the Streamflow release progress

Catch you next week. If you have any questions in the meantime, add a comment here or catch me in the Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder Telegram channel.

P.S. Want to join us? Please do by bonding your LPT here

It’s been a while since I posted here. The transcoder’s running well I’m working on the latest update.

Every reward round’s been claimed since the last update (1249-1287)!

Also, I started the un-bonding process for 600 of my earned LPT. I would like to sell 500 to cover the operational costs I’ve incurred over the past 6+ months.

The other 100 I’ll delegate to one of the newer transcoders I trust and who’s values align with mine. I see this as a gesture toward supporting decentralized staking.

Please let me know if you have any questions on or concerns with any of this. You can leave your questions in the comments here :point_down: or in the Chainflow LIvepeer Transcoder group.

Hi Everyone :wave:

I wanted to drop a brief update here to let you know the Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder’s alive and well!

We should eclipse 100K LPT staked to us on Sunday!

My gratitude to all of you who’ve put your trust in me to-date :pray:

The transcoder hasn’t missed a reward round in a very long time. In fact, I don’t believe we’ve missed a reward round since well before the last update I posted on March 25.

A big reason for this is the fantastic Transcoder monitoring Telegram bot. It sends regular updates to the Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder Telegram group.

I switched from using a local Geth node back to the default Infura node a while back. Geth was behaving more unpredictably than usual. That’s the reason for the change. So far, the Infura node’s working well.

One of the other Transcoder’s I know is running a full Ethereum node. They’ve offered to let us use it too. I plan to switch over to that node soon. Because the Infura node’s been reliable, it doesn’t feel like an urgent priority.

Other than that, I’ve been following the Streamflow release progress. I also participated in this community call focused on the experience of running a transcoder -

I’ve also been staying in touch with Doug, Eric and the Livepeer team. We cross paths in and around the Livepeer office and various Ethereum events, most recently ETHNewYork.

Outside of Livepeer, I’ve been coming online to other staking networks. I also launched the Decentralized Staking Defenders. The latter’s an attempt to counteract the early trends toward stake centralization we’re seeing staking networks trend toward.

Thanks again for your continued support. If you haven’t already, please join us in the Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder Telegram group for more frequent updates that get posted here :blush:

And if you’d like to delegate to us, please do that here.

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Hi Everyone :wave:

August marks the Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder’s 1 year anniversary :tada:

My gratitude to those who’ve delegated nearly 200,000 LPT to me to-date :pray:

You’ll notice that these updates have become more sporadic. Conversely, Chainflow validator activities, which include the Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder, have been gaining momentum.

I’m slowly bringing the ChainflowPOS Twitter account online. Follow it for the most current Chainflow Livepeer Transcoder updates, as well as updates on all the validators Chainflow’s running.

Also, you can see daily updates, like confirming I’ve called each day’s rewards, thanks to the bot developed by @vires-in-numeris, in the Chainflow Livepeer Telegram channel.

You can use that same channel to communicate with me directly too. I hope to see you there!

Chris

Hi Everyone :wave:

We’re feeling excited to see the Livepeer Streamflow test net launch. Chainflow will run an orchestrator on the test net very soon. We’ll also run an orchestrator when the the Streamflow upgrade happens.

Along those lines, we’re looking for GPU/Transcoder partners to work with. Please contact us if you’re going to operate a Transcoder and would like to discuss working with the Chainflow Orchestrator.

We’re also loving the new Livepeer explorer! It feels hopeful to see the Livepeer team focusing on the end-user experience.

Use it to stake to the Chainflow Transcoder here.

As a transcoder update, the Chainflow Transcoder -

  • Hasn’t missed a reward call in a very long time, at least since early March 2019

  • Is #15 on the active transcoder list with a total stake of 251932.4 LPT

My gratitude for the support we’ve received to-date :pray:

We look forward to participating in Livepeer’s bright future (and getting some real video streaming on the network!) :tv:

Chris

P.S. - We also have a new Chainflow Twitter account and Telegram channel.

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We’ve upgraded to Streamflow and didn’t miss a round :slight_smile:

We’re excited to launch the Livepeer Orchestrator Seed program. Learn more about it and how to apply here.

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We’ve completed our 3box profile integration on the Livepeer Explorer :tv::sparkles:

https://explorer.livepeer.org/accounts/0xd0aa1b9d0cd06cafa6af5c1af272be88c38aa831/campaign

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We open-sourced this Livepeer Streamflow Transcoding Financial Model back in February, as a community contribution.

We’ve applied for this Livepeer business case development grant to continue updating the financial model we open-sourced as a community contribution.

We were approved for the busness model update grant. Phase 1 is complete. You can find that update here.

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Phase 2 of the Orchestrator Business Model’s complete. You can find that update here.

Head’s Up!

Due to the current high gas prices, I plan to increase the Chainflow Livepeer Orchestrator’s reward cut from 5% to 7.5%.

The change will happen on Wednesday, July 29, 2020. If you are currently delegating to me and object to this increase, please let me know in the comments before then.

Currently 25% of my reward goes toward paying for gas. The reward cut increase will offset that gas price increase.

I will consider dropping the reward cut back to 5% once gas prices drop again.

Thank you for your continued support :pray:

Hi Everyone,

We missed our first reward call in as long as I can remember yesterday. This is a by-product of high gas prices. We re-funded our validator with more ETH, yet neglected to restart the Livepeer daemon after doing so, which led to the reward not being called.

We’re happy to pay out any rewards you may have missed. Contact us here to arrange that.

As an aside, we’ve been paying A LOT in gas. Recently one reward call transaction cost $100. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, we’ve added more ETH to cover these costs and are committed to continuing to do so.

Chris

Hi Everyone :wave:

We’ve added a GPU transcoder to our Livepeer architecture and are creeping toward the Top 10 on the performance leaderboard.

We’ll be continuing to monitor and optimize this configuration to support Livepeer as it takes its next steps to provide decentralized video encoding at scale :tv::muscle:

Chris

P.S. - If you recently unstaked from us due to poor performance, please do consider staking to us again. Contact me if you have any questions about our current and future plans to continue supporting the network.

After weeks of tuning and troubleshooting, we’ve stabilized our Livepeer GPU transcoding :muscle:

You can now find us in the top 5 performance rankings on the dashboard :tv:

Our gratitude to the Livepeer team and community for their assistance along the way :pray:

P.S. - If you recently unstaked from us due to poor performance, please do consider staking to us again. Contact me if you have any questions about our current and future plans to continue supporting the network.

Head’s Up!

Due to the current high gas prices, we plan to increase the Chainflow Livepeer Orchestrator’s reward cut from 7.5% to 12.5%.

For example, yesterday’s reward cost us about $136 in gas to call. Our income was about $35, resulting in a net loss of $100.

The change will happen on Tuesday, Feb 9, 2021. If you are currently delegating to me and object to this increase, please let me know in the comments before then.

Currently 25% of my reward goes toward paying for gas. The reward cut increase will offset that gas price increase.

I will consider dropping the reward cut once/if gas prices start dropping again.

Thank you for your continued support :pray: