LPT & ETH Token Functions

What the LPT & ETH Tokens are used for in the Livepeer Protocol

This page distinguishes the protocol’s payment layer from its staking and governance layer so delegators can reason about ETH-denominated fees and LPT-denominated security roles separately.

Payment Layers

The Livpeer Protocol uses two distinct currencies for different purposes:

Currency	Purpose	Used By
ETH/Wei	Service payments (transcoding, AI)	Gateways → Orchestrators
LPT	Staking, governance, rewards	Orchestrators, Delegators

The separation is intentional: ETH handles actual service payments while LPT handles protocol governance and staking. This design keeps service costs predictable in a stable currency while allowing LPT to serve its governance function

Price Configuration Prices can be specified in wei or converted from fiat currencies starter.go:891-908

pricePerUnit, currency, err := parsePricePerUnit(*cfg.PricePerUnit)
// Supports: "1000", "0.50USD", "1.5EUR" etc.
// Converts to wei for actual payments

ETH Payments

Gateways pay for transcoding and AI processing services using ETH (Ethereum), not Livepeer tokens (LPT). The payment system is built on Ethereum’s currency.