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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.livepeer.org/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

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Network Purpose

The Network was designed to deliver real-time video and AI compute at production volume on a permissionless, open marketplace. Where the Protocol provides the rules, the Network provides the running system: GPU operators accepting jobs, gateways routing demand, payments settling continuously off-chain. The Livepeer Network is the running fleet of go-livepeer nodes that accept jobs, perform transcoding and AI inference, exchange off-chain payments, and settle on-chain only when a probabilistic ticket wins. Most of what a user experiences as “Livepeer” happens in the Network.

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Network Design

The Network’s design preserves seven properties. Together they explain why Livepeer’s running system can do what a centralised compute API cannot.

How the Protocol enforces the rules the Network executes against.

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Design Decisions

The Network’s design reflects deliberate choices made to preserve the seven properties at scale.

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Design Implementation

The Network is implemented as a fleet of go-livepeer nodes communicating off-chain, anchored to four protocol contracts on Arbitrum One. Off-chain traffic carries jobs, capability advertisement, and tickets. On-chain settlement carries deposits, winning tickets, and per-round rewards. The diagram is the boundary diagram. Solid arrows are continuous off-chain traffic; dashed arrows are the few on-chain interactions per session. Most jobs never produce a dashed arrow. The Network is sized for the solid lines.

How the Network sits in the four-layer Livepeer stack.

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Network Actors

The Network does not enforce the rules; the Protocol does. The actors below are the participants that run the off-chain layer and interact with the on-chain Protocol to coordinate, settle, and earn.
The Network is operated by four kinds of participant. Each runs different software, takes a different risk, and earns differently.

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Where to go next

Pick the path that matches what you came to do.

GPU hardware, staking, earnings, operations.

Routing infrastructure, deposits, pricing.

Stake, choose orchestrators, earn rewards.

APIs, SDKs, integration paths.

The on-chain layer that anchors the Network.

The four-layer Livepeer stack.

Who participates and why.

Staking, rewards, settlement, rounds.
Last modified on May 4, 2026