Activate on Arbitrum

Fund your wallet, stake LPT, register your service URI, and enter the active set so gateways can send you jobs.

A configured node isn’t earning yet. This guide connects it to the Livepeer protocol on Arbitrum One: fund the wallet, stake LPT, activate on-chain, and confirm reward calling.

Start this after ETH and LPT are already in your orchestrator wallet on Arbitrum One. Acquiring LPT often involves exchange settlement and bridging — plan for hours to days. See Acquire LPT on Arbitrum.

1. Point at a reliable Arbitrum RPC

-ethUrl connects the node to Arbitrum One. The community-run LiveInfra SPE endpoint is free for verified orchestrators. Free tiers from Alchemy (300M compute units/mo) or Infura (100K req/day) also work for most operators. Public endpoints like arb1.arbitrum.io/rpc are for testing only — a dropped connection during round initialization can forfeit that round’s reward.

Verify the endpoint is actually Arbitrum One:

curl -s -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_chainId","params":[],"id":1}' \
  YOUR_RPC_URL
# Expect "result":"0xa4b1" (42161). "0x1" means you're on Ethereum L1 — switch endpoints.

2. Choose your orchestrator wallet

The orchestrator wallet holds your staked LPT and receives fees. It never needs to run on the node — you only use it to update orchestrator settings, move funds, and vote. Use a hardware wallet or a Safe multisig.

Alternatively, go-livepeer creates an account on first start and prints the address in the logs:

docker compose logs 2>&1 | grep -i "account\|address"

If you use this keystore, its private key lives at ~/.lpData/arbitrum-one-mainnet/keystore. Back it up offline now. Losing it means permanent loss of the account and all bonded LPT.

3. Fund the wallet with ETH on Arbitrum

Every on-chain action (activation, reward calls, ticket redemption) costs gas. Keep at least 0.05 ETH on Arbitrum One to start, and never let it fall below ~0.01 ETH. Get arbETH by withdrawing from an exchange that supports Arbitrum, or bridging from L1 at bridge.arbitrum.io. Verify the balance on Arbiscan.

4. Stake LPT

LPT bonded to your address is what puts you in the active set (top orchestrators by total stake). Check the current threshold on the Explorer before deciding how much to acquire. The orchestrator itself only needs a 1 LPT self-bond. Stake the rest by delegating from a hardware wallet rather than bonding it all from a keystore. Self-bond on the Explorer, or in the CLI if the keystore is on the node:

docker exec -it livepeer-orchestrator livepeer_cli

Transactions in livepeer_cli require the node to be started with -enableCliTxRoutes. Add it for these steps only and remove it afterwards. Keep -cliAddr on 127.0.0.1:7935 and never expose port 7935 to the internet.

Either way, two transactions are submitted — approve, then bond. Wait for both to confirm.

5. Activate on-chain

In livepeer_cli, select “Invoke multi-step ‘become an orchestrator’” and set your commission:

Prompt	Example	Meaning
Reward Cut	10	% of LPT inflation you keep (10% → delegators get 90%)
Fee Cut	95	% of ETH fees you keep (95% → delegators get 5%)
Service address	YOUR_PUBLIC_IP:8935	Must match -serviceAddr exactly

Without a keystore on the node, make the same two calls from your wallet: transcoder on the BondingManager and setServiceURI on the ServiceRegistry, or on the AIServiceRegistry if you serve AI.

The Explorer displays Fee Cut inverted, as “Fee Share.” Set Fee Cut 95 here and your profile will show Fee Share 5% — the portion passed to delegators. That’s the same setting, not a misconfiguration. (Reward Cut displays as-is.)

Your node joins the active set at the start of the next round (~22h), and only if your total stake is in the top 100. The Explorer may show Registered until then.

See Economics for how these two settings affect both your earnings and your appeal to delegators.

6. Run the node on a throwaway wallet

The machine doing the work is your exposed surface. Never run it with the orchestrator key. Start the node with a fresh -dataDir so it generates a new account, send that address a little ETH for gas, and point it at your orchestrator:

Flag	Value	Purpose
-ethAcctAddr	throwaway address	Signs for the node, redeems tickets, and can be the reward caller (step 7)
-ethOrchAddr	your orchestrator address	Fees and rewards accrue here

If you activated from a keystore on this machine, finish step 7, then move it to cold storage and delete it from the node. A compromised machine then yields a near-empty wallet, not your stake.

7. Set up a reward caller

Delegate reward calling to a separate, low-privilege wallet. It can only call reward() — not move funds, unbond, change settings, or vote — so the orchestrator wallet stays in cold storage (LIP-118).

Choose the caller:

go-livepeer

The throwaway wallet from step 6. The node reads the on-chain mapping and calls reward for -ethOrchAddr itself — no extra flags.

Standalone caller

The wallet of a livepeer-reward-caller you run yourself — a single static binary with its own keystore. Start the node with -reward=false.

Shared caller

The community livepeer.bot caller, which calls reward for every orchestrator that authorizes its address. Nothing to run. Start the node with -reward=false.

Authorize it from your orchestrator wallet — with cast against the BondingManager, or with “Set reward caller” in livepeer_cli if the keystore is on the node:

cast send 0x35Bcf3c30594191d53231E4FF333E8A770453e40 \
  "setRewardCaller(address)" <REWARD_CALLER_ADDR> \
  --rpc-url <ARBITRUM_RPC_URL> \
  --keystore <ORCHESTRATOR_KEYSTORE>

Set it to 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 to revoke. Arbiscan does not show this method on the proxy page yet, but it is live on-chain.

8. Confirm reward calling

After the next round starts (~22h), your orchestrator’s page on the Explorer shows the reward call. With a standalone or shared caller, its wallet on Arbiscan shows it too. With go-livepeer, the node logs do:

docker compose logs 2>&1 | grep -i reward

A missed round forfeits that round’s LPT permanently — there is no catch-up.

Exception for very low stake: if reward-call gas costs more than the LPT you’d earn, disabling automatic calling and calling manually until your stake grows can be the rational choice. Reward calls use ~350k–450k gas (cents at typical Arbitrum prices).

A caller that quietly stops looks exactly like one that is working. Send /subscribe <orchestrator address> to @OrchestratorWatcherBot on Telegram for alerts on missed reward calls, and see Monitor your orchestrator.

9. Verify

On explorer.livepeer.org/orchestrators, search your address and confirm Status, Stake, Reward Cut, and Fee Cut. The Explorer does not show the service URI — read it from the ServiceRegistry, then confirm external reachability:

cast call 0xC92d3A360b8f9e083bA64DE15d95Cf8180897431 \
  "getServiceURI(address)(string)" <ORCHESTRATOR_ADDR> --rpc-url <ARBITRUM_RPC_URL>
curl -k https://YOUR_PUBLIC_IP:8935/status

If the service URI is wrong or unreachable, update it in livepeer_cli or via setServiceURI on the contract (this costs gas). A bad or unreachable service address is the most common reason an active node still receives no jobs — see the FAQ.

Next

Set pricing

The other half of getting selected by gateways.

Add AI inference

Open a second revenue stream.