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Terms (Actors & Network)
  • Gateway
  • Orchestrator
  • Delegator
  • Developer
Terms (web3)
  • DePIN
  • LPT
  • ETH
Terms (video)
  • Transcoding
  • Ingest
  • Delivery
  • Streaming
Terms (AI)
  • Inference
  • Model
  • Pipeline
  • World Model
  • Agent
Terms (Other)

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title: ‘Livepeer Glossary’ sidebarTitle: ‘Livepeer Glossary’ description: ‘A comprehensive glossary of terms used in the Livepeer Real-Time AI & Video Network’
A searchable view would be ideal here.
Terms not verified, brainstorm list only

Livepeer Core Terms

Livepeer Protocol

The protocol is the ruleset + on-chain logic governing:
  • staking
  • delegation
  • inflation & rewards
  • orchestrator selection
  • slashing
  • probabilistic payments
  • verification rules
The economic and coordination layer that enforces correct behavior.

Livepeer Network

The network is the actual running system of machines performing work:
  • Orchestrators (GPU nodes)
  • Transcoders / Workers
  • Gateways
  • Broadcasters
  • Verification processes
  • Job routing
  • Real-time AI & video compute
It is the live, operational decentralized GPU mesh running video + AI jobs.

Protocol Actor

Protocol Actors are the main participants in the protocol who make up the core functions of the network (wrong). Protocol Actors include gateways, orchestrators, and delegators.

Livepeer Actor

A Livepeer actor is a participant in the protocol or network—human or machine—that performs a defined role such as submitting jobs, providing compute, verifying work, or securing the system.

Network Participant

Same as Protocol Actor (..?)

Livepeer Ecosystem

Ecosystem Partner

A complimentary company working with Livepeer eg Storage, Security, etc.

Developer Platform

An abstraction layer on the livepeer protocol that provides tools and services for developers to use & build applications on top of Livepeer. Examples include Livepeer Studio, Daydream, and Streamplace.

Actors & Network Roles

Gateway

A gateway is a Livepeer node operated by a user or organization to interact directly with the Livepeer protocol.
Gateways submit jobs, route work to orchestrators, manage payment flows, and provide a direct interface to the network.
Not the same as hosted services like Studio or Daydream.

Orchestrator (GPU Node)

A supply-side operator that contributes GPU resources to the network.
Orchestrators receive jobs, perform transcoding or AI inference, and get paid via LPT rewards + ETH fees.

Transcoder (Worker)

A worker process—often managed by an orchestrator—that performs the actual compute work (transcoding or AI inference).

Delegator

A token holder who stakes their LPT to an orchestrator to help secure the network and earn a share of rewards.

Developer

Anyone building applications using Livepeer, usually through hosted services (e.g., Studio, Daydream) or library SDKs.
Developers only run gateways if they want direct protocol access.

Broadcaster (-> Gateway)

Deprecated TermSee Gateways A job submitter—often a user-facing service—that sends video or AI jobs into the network via a gateway.

Verifier

A network component (protocol-level) responsible for validating work performed by orchestrators to ensure correctness.

Protocol

The on-chain governance and incentive layer that coordinates orchestrators, staking rewards, inflation, slashing, and job payments.

Core Network Concepts

Job

A unit of work submitted to the network: video transcoding tasks, AI inference requests, or real-time processing pipelines.

Segment

A short chunk of video that is independently transcoded, enabling parallel processing.

Ticket / Payment Ticket

Livepeer’s probabilistic micropayment mechanism used to pay orchestrators efficiently at high throughput.

Rounds

Discrete time intervals (Ethereum blocks) used to calculate staking rewards and coordinate global state.

Slashing

A penalty applied to orchestrators for misbehavior (e.g., failing verification or submitting fraudulent results).

Inflation

The issuance of new LPT each round, distributed to orchestrators and delegators.

Reputation

A measure of an orchestrator’s performance, reliability, and trustworthiness, influencing job routing and payments.

Web3 Terms

Ethereum Address (Wallet Public Address)

An Ethereum address on the blockchain is a 42-character hexadecimal string that starts with 0x. It is derived from the last 20 bytes of the public key and is used to send and receive funds or interact with smart contracts.

Block Timestanps

The Ethereum blockchain uses a block.timestamp field within each block, which is a 256-bit value representing the number of seconds since January 1, 1970, at 00:00:00 UTC (Unix time). This timestamp is used by smart contracts for time-dependent functions but is a network mechanism, not part of the address format.

DePIN

“Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network.”
A network where physical or computational resources (GPUs, bandwidth, storage) are coordinated through crypto-economic incentives.

LPT (Livepeer Token)

The governance and staking token used for orchestrator selection, delegation, reward distribution, and protocol security. The Livepeer Token id deployed to the Ethereum Mainnet, however multiple

Tokenomics (Token Economics)

Main Definition: The study of designing economic systems for decentralized networks. This term is often used when describing both the protocol functions and which token incentives serve to create the optimal codified environment for the eficient operation of the network. Usage in Practice: This term is often used in multiple senses in web3, being used in both a macro economics sense (to describe high level actors incentives and their impact on behavior) and in a micro sense to describe inflation curves, token allocations, the tokenomics of a specific actor (e.g., orchestrator, delegator, broadcaster, etc.), token release schedules, etc.

Game Theory

On-chain

On-chain refers to the data and operations that are recorded on the blockchain. In the context of Livepeer, it refers to the protocol layer that governs staking, delegation, rewards, and verification.

Off-chain

Off-chain refers to the data and operations that are not recorded on the blockchain.
In the context of Livepeer, it refers to the network layer that performs video transcoding, AI inference, and job routing, including orchestrators and gateways.

ETH

Ethereum’s native token. Used to pay fees for transcoding, AI jobs, and network interactions.

ARB

Arbitrum’s native token. Used to pay fees for transcoding, AI jobs, and network interactions.

Layer 2

A scaling solution for Ethereum that enables high-throughput, low-cost transactions. Livepeer uses Arbitrum Layer 2 for its protocol.

Staking

Locking LPT to an orchestrator to earn a share of rewards.

Gas

The fee paid for on-chain operations.

Slashing Conditions

Network-defined rules that determine when LPT is destroyed due to misbehavior.

Bridging

The process of moving tokens between (eg Ethereum Layer 1 and Arbitrum L2)

Rollups

One of the methods by which transactions on layer 2 blockchains are tallied and confirmed on the main chain.

Video Engineering Terms

Transcoding

Converting video from one format, resolution, or bitrate to another. Livepeer accelerates this distribution step economically.

Ingest

The process of receiving a live video feed from a broadcaster.

Delivery

Sending processed (transcoded) video to viewers via a CDN or playback service.

Streaming

Continuous transmission of audio/video over the network.

RTMP

A common ingest protocol for live streaming to gateways.

HLS

A segmented streaming protocol widely used for delivery to end-users.

Bitrate

The amount of data encoded per second of video; a key parameter in transcoding.

RTMP

Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) is a communication protocol for streaming audio, video, and data over the Internet.

AI Terms

Inference

Running a model to generate outputs (frames, embeddings, predictions) from inputs.

Model

A machine learning system (e.g., diffusion model, transformer, world model) hosted on an orchestrator or gateway.

Pipeline

A sequence of inference steps: e.g., frame generation → upscaling → audio alignment → encoding.

Real-Time AI

AI workflows that generate or transform video frames fast enough to maintain interactive/streaming use cases.

World Model

A holistic model capable of understanding and generating coherent multi-modal worlds (video, audio, action).

Agent

A system that uses models to make decisions or interact with an environment—potentially running on decentralized GPUs.

TensorRT

An inference optimization framework used to accelerate model execution on NVIDIA GPUs.

ControlNet

A conditioning mechanism for diffusion models that allows structural guidance (pose, depth, edges, etc).

Payments & Economics

Fee Pool

Accumulated fees available for orchestrators to earn based on their performance and stake weight.

Reward Cut

The percentage of staking rewards kept by the orchestrator.

Fee Cut

The percentage of job fees kept by the orchestrator.

Delegator Rewards

LPT or ETH earned by delegators proportional to their stake.

Operational Terms

Node

Any machine running Livepeer software—gateway nodes, orchestrator nodes, or worker nodes.

CLI

Command-line interface used to configure gateways or orchestrators.

Configuration Parameters

Settings (flags/env vars) that control node behavior, payments, preferred orchestrators, etc.

Health Check

A verification check to ensure orchestrators produce correct r

Other Terms

Decentralized GPU Network

A marketplace of GPUs contributed by orchestrators worldwide, coordinated through crypto incentives.

Open Source

Code that is publicly available and community-maintained—central to Livepeer’s philosophy.

Edge Compute

Computing performed near the data source (e.g., near real-time video generation).

Latency

The delay between receiving input and delivering output—critical in real-time video & AI.

Quality Ladder

Multiple renditions of a video at different qualities, produced during transcoding for adaptive playback.
Last modified on January 13, 2026