Author: Rick Staa, Livepeer Foundation

Funding Mechanism: On-chain Treasury - SPE Proposal

Submission URL: Pre Proposal

Winning Submission URL: Protocol R&D SPE

Claimed By: Side Stream

Track Progress: Forum Updates

1. Purpose

Livepeer’s protocol secures meaningful on-chain value and increasingly supports real-time AI workloads that depend on reliability, safety, and predictable upgrades. Today, vulnerability response, protocol maintenance, and core development rely on limited shared resources, slowing iteration and making it harder to proactively evolve the protocol as the network grows.

To strengthen Livepeer’s long-term foundations, the network needs a dedicated, always-available protocol development and security function with clear ownership, coordinated workflows, and the ability to respond quickly to issues, ship safe upgrades, and maintain essential infrastructure such as a public testnet. Establishing this structure now ensures the protocol remains secure, resilient, and scalable as demand increases.

2. Outcome

Overall success is when Livepeer operates a clearly defined, continuously supported protocol development and security function. Immunefi response and upgrade workflows are formalized and resourced, a stable public testnet is launched for validation, and a lightweight triage and release pipeline is operating and used continuously ship prioritized backlog upgrades. This creates a predictable, accountable foundation for safe protocol evolution as the network scales into transcoding and real-time AI workloads.

Key Metrics To Measure The Outcome Against:

1. Immunefi Response Readiness: A defined and resourced workflow enabling timely triage and patch preparation.

2. Public Testnet Preparedness: A stable testnet launched or fully scoped with a clear operational plan.

3. Triage & Release Pipeline: A lightweight prioritization and release process established and in active use.

4. Backlog Delivery Velocity: One or more prioritized backlog features or patches progressed through triage → testing → deployment per release cycle.

3. Requirements

Must Have:

• Immunefi Response Workflow: A clearly defined and resourced first-response process for vulnerability triage and patch preparation.

• Public testnet: A stable public testnet for protocol validation, audits, and developer testing.

• Triage & Release Pipeline: A documented process that enables protocol upgrades to move from prioritization through testing to mainnet deployment.

• Backlog upgrades delivered: One or more high-priority protocol upgrades shipped via the triage and release pipeline (examples: fee ticket distinction, reward call delegation).

Should have:

• Release Cadence & Prioritization Model: Initial structure for ongoing triage and predictable upgrade cadence beyond the first release.

• DevEx Improvements: Early tooling or workflows that improve the safety and reliability of protocol development and testing (exam.g., CI integration or simulation tooling).

Nice to Have

• Backlog refinement: A clearly prioritized list of protocol improvements and longer-term R&D needs.

• Contribution pathways: Clear guidance for how community developers can propose or test protocol changes (e.g., governance proposals or testnet workflows).

4. Proposal Guidelines

Your proposal must include the following in your proposal. Here is a guideline for what we are looking for: Livepeer RFP — Proposal Template

• Company Overview & Capabilities

• Experience and why you are a great fit for this work

• Milestones (with funding amount, timeline, deliverables, demo day for each)

• Outcomes

• Budget & Governance (how funds will be distributed)