Share this article
Decentralized Video Protocol Livepeer Raises $20M to Take On Streaming Giants
Digital Currency Group, Coinbase Ventures and CoinFund were among those to join the latest funding round.
Updated May 9, 2023, 3:22 a.m. Published Jul 29, 2021, 11:00 a.m.
Make us preferred on Google
Livepeer, a decentralized video transcoding platform built on Ethereum, has raised $20 million in a funding round led by Digital Currency Group (DCG).
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
DCG was joined in the Series B funding round by several other noteworthy investors in the crypto space including Coinbase Ventures, CoinFund and Northzone. (CoinDesk is an independent subsidiary of DCG.)
As the Web 3 ecosystem continues to grow, dapp developers are working on decentralized alternatives to everything from financial products to entertainment, including gaming and music-streaming.
But many would-be decentralized streaming platforms and startups encounter trouble building with centralized infrastructure owned by tech giants like Amazon and Google, said Livepeer co-founder Doug Petkanics.
He said the marketplace allows for a symbiotic relationship between buyers and sellers that is incentivized by Livepeer’s native token, LPT, and is much cheaper than the services provided by mainstream alternatives.
Livepeer’s marketplace connects encoding providers – many of whom are crypto miners and data centers with otherwise unused capacity – to anyone who needs processing power for video services. Livepeer has an estimated 70,000 GPUs on its network.
“In creating an open market run by a decentralized network of active participants, Livepeer’s transcoding can be 10 times cheaper (or more) than centralized alternatives like Amazon Web Services,” CoinFund CEO Jake Brukhman said in a press statement.
More For You
Pudgy Penguins is building a multi-vertical consumer IP platform — combining phygital products, games, NFTs and PENGU to monetize culture at scale.
What to know:
Pudgy Penguins is emerging as one of the strongest NFT-native brands of this cycle, shifting from speculative “digital luxury goods” into a multi-vertical consumer IP platform. Its strategy is to acquire users through mainstream channels first; toys, retail partnerships and viral media, then onboard them into Web3 through games, NFTs and the PENGU token.
The ecosystem now spans phygital products (> $13M retail sales and >1M units sold), games and experiences (Pudgy Party surpassed 500k downloads in two weeks), and a widely distributed token (airdropped to 6M+ wallets). While the market is currently pricing Pudgy at a premium relative to traditional IP peers, sustained success depends on execution across retail expansion, gaming adoption and deeper token utility.
More For You
Circle faces first major 'threat' for institutional dollars from Tether’s USAT
While Circle's USDC has operated without a "credible domestic competitor," Tether's USAT has the potential to shake up the landscape, analysts said.
What to know:
- Analysts said USAT, the U.S.-focused stablecoin by Tether, could become the first credible domestic competitor to Circle's USDC token.
- USAT is "a threat to USDC" and could gain an edge through institutional partners and global USDT connectivity, Crypto is Macro Now's Noelle Acheson said.
- ClearStreet's Owen Lau called USAT “a manageable risk” for Circle, and noted potential "cannibalization" risk between Tether's two tokens.
Top Stories
