livepeer / livepeer/research

Bandwidth Incentivization

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Description

Bandwidth incentives remain a challenge in the decentralized tech stack because it is difficult to prove that bandwidth was provided and utilized for a specific purpose.

Even if it can be proved, then how should compensation work for providing bandwidth? Should it be tit-for-tat, and one can only consume content if they are also providing?

Should it be paid directly? Where a payment (via a method in #4) is provided along with every request for a chunk of data?

How does this effect downstream clients (end users), who likely aren't accustomed to making payments every time they watch a video. Can payments be sponsored by an application, but still have the video delivered in a P2P way?

Decentralized VPN projects are looking at solutions to this as well.

Protocols to look at include

* [SWAP](http://swarm-gateways.net)
* Bittorrent
* [Orchid](https://orchidprotocol.com/)
* [Mysterium](https://mysterium.network/)

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Research direction

Compare the bandwidth-incentive approaches in SWAP, Bittorrent, Orchid, and Mysterium, using the payment method discussed in issue #4 as context. Define how bandwidth provision is verified, how compensation works, and how sponsored payments could support downstream clients; a useful outcome would be a decided protocol direction.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
distributed-systems, networking, payments
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
20/100

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