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Livepeer — Lisar SPE Delegation Program (Arbitrum) — What Happened

This is an evidence-based review of how the Lisar SPE’s delegation onboarding performed, using:

  • Lisar’s public dashboard API (/admin/dashboard/summary, /admin/dashboard/transactions)
  • On-chain Livepeer BondingManager events on Arbitrum One via eth_getLogs / eth_call

Forum context:

Reproduce​

Generate the report (writes JSON + a short human summary):

python3 tools/livepeer/lisar_program_delegation_report.py --out-dir artifacts/livepeer-lisar-spe-delegation

Primary outputs:

  • artifacts/livepeer-lisar-spe-delegation/report.md
  • artifacts/livepeer-lisar-spe-delegation/report.json

Executive Summary (as of 2026-01-17)​

From Lisar dashboard transactions + on-chain verification (artifacts/livepeer-lisar-spe-delegation/report.json):

  • 14 unique delegator addresses bonded (first bond observed: 2025-11-14)
  • 13 / 14 are still bonded now (~93% retention, small sample)
  • Total bonded via Bond events (additional): 35.244726 LPT
  • Current bonded (on-chain getDelegator().bondedAmount summed across the cohort): 33.260234 LPT
  • Lisar dashboard reports: totalDelegators=13, totalLptDelegated=30.444726 LPT
  • Dashboard mismatch:
    • bond_additional_total_lpt - totalLptDelegated = 4.800000 LPT (exactly)
    • current_total_bonded_lpt - totalLptDelegated = 2.815508 LPT

Interpretation: Lisar successfully onboarded new, small delegators (count impact), but the absolute stake is still tiny (stake impact).

Timeline (new delegators by first bond date)​

New-to-Livepeer bonders (first bond per address):

  • 2025-11-14: 3
  • 2025-11-15: 4
  • 2025-11-16: 3
  • 2025-11-17: 1
  • 2025-11-18: 2
  • 2025-11-28: 1 (largest single delegator in this cohort: 15.734726 LPT)

The on-chain “bonding activity” for this cohort mostly happened over ~5 days (Nov 14–18), then one larger add on Nov 28, then small top-ups until Dec 04.

Stake Distribution (current)​

Among the 13 active delegators:

  • Total: 33.260234 LPT
  • Median: 1.9 LPT
  • Min: 0.388792 LPT
  • Max: 15.734726 LPT
  • Top-1 concentration: 47.3% of bonded stake is held by a single address
  • Excluding that top address, mean stake is ~1.46 LPT

This is exactly the “small delegator” segment (single-digit LPT) we care about increasing.

Delegate Concentration (current)​

Active delegators by current orchestrator delegate:

  • 9 / 13 delegate to: 0x5d98f8d269c94b746a5c3c2946634dcfc75e5e60
  • The remaining 4 are split 1 each across 4 other orchestrators (see report.json)

Interpretation: Lisar onboarding is currently highly concentrated to a single orchestrator choice (which may or may not be desired, depending on decentralization goals).

Deposit → Bond Funnel (from dashboard txs)​

The dashboard exposes 48 “transactions”:

  • bond: 23
  • deposit: 18
  • unbond: 3
  • withdraw: 4

Key observations:

  • Deposits appear as on-chain LPT ERC20 transfers into user addresses:
    • 17 unique deposit recipients
    • 3 unique deposit senders (likely Lisar-controlled wallets) funding users
    • Total deposit transfers (decoded from ERC20 transfer calldata): 45.1807 LPT
  • There are 3 deposit-only addresses (received deposit, never bonded) — suggests drop-off between “funded” and “delegated”.

This is a useful “retail onboarding funnel” signal: even with gas sponsorship / product UX, some portion of users still didn’t complete delegation.

Benchmark vs Livepeer Network (Arbitrum)​

Using the network-wide BondingManager scan aggregated in artifacts/livepeer-delegator-flows/daily.json:

Window A (Lisar bond window): 2025-11-14 → 2025-12-04

  • Livepeer network new delegators (first-time bonders): 42
  • Lisar cohort new delegators: 14 (~33% of new delegators in this window)
  • Livepeer network bonded (additional) volume: 331,283.863 LPT
  • Lisar bonded (additional): 35.245 LPT (~0.0106% of bonded volume)

Stake-size context (first-bond amounts for those 42 new delegators in Window A, from delegators_state.pkl):

  • Network median first bond: ~24.75 LPT (p75 ~200 LPT, max ~48,639 LPT)
  • % of new delegators with first bond ≤ 2 LPT: ~40.5%
  • Lisar cohort: 13 / 14 (~92.9%) had first bond ≤ 2 LPT (one was 15.734726 LPT)

Window B (extended): 2025-11-14 → 2025-12-18

  • Livepeer network new delegators: 56
  • Lisar cohort new delegators: 14 (25%)

Interpretation: Lisar’s visible impact is much stronger on new-delegator count than on total stake (so far).

What This Means for “Small Delegator Incentives”​

  1. A low-friction product can move the needle on small-delegator count, even if stake is small.
  2. Count-based programs are sybil-sensitive: this cohort looks like real retail sizes, but uniqueness is not provable from on-chain data alone.
  3. If Livepeer wants more small delegators, a “small-delegator boost” should be paired with a distribution channel like Lisar (or an LST) to reduce onboarding friction, otherwise incentives alone get captured by existing wallets.

Open Questions / Follow-ups​

  • Why does the dashboard totalLptDelegated differ from on-chain current bonded totals for the same addresses?
    • The delta vs total bonded via Bond events is exactly 4.8 LPT, which may indicate a specific exclusion rule (beta cohort? internal/test delegations?).
  • Are the “deposit sender” wallets verified as Lisar-controlled, and do they correlate to KYC’ed users (uniqueness signal)?
  • Did Lisar’s new delegators persist beyond the initial learning period (90/180d retention), or does churn rise later?