Goal
Delegators can see an orchestrator's reward/fee cut history at a glance, are passively warned when sudden cut changes are detected, and can opt in to native notifications when cuts change on orchestrators they delegate to.
Context
The Livepeer protocol allows orchestrators to change their reward cut and fee cut at any time, with changes taking effect within roughly two hours (only the last ~10% of blocks in a round are locked). This has enabled a recurring pattern observed in the network: an orchestrator advertises very low cuts (often 0%) to attract stake, then rapidly raises one or both cuts — sometimes to 100% — and farms a disproportionate share of rewards before delegators can react.
The Explorer today surfaces only the current reward and fee cut values. There is no passive signal about historical volatility, and no native notification path when values change. Some delegators rely on the community-maintained Vires Telegram bot, but coverage across the delegator base is partial and newly-onboarded delegators arrive with no prior signal about an orchestrator's historical behavior.
The two-hour round lock was originally intended to give delegators time to react before the next round, but in practice unbonding requires user action within that short window and most delegators are not watching the network in real time. The net result is a recurring trust problem: well-behaved orchestrators are visually grouped alongside orchestrators exhibiting this pattern, and value is periodically extracted from delegators who acted in good faith on the information the Explorer showed them.
This epic covers the near-term Explorer-only work that does not require protocol changes. Longer-term protocol options (cut change effective-round delay, slashing) are out of scope here and tracked separately.
Scope
Included:
- Reward / fee cut history chart on the orchestrator page. Time-series visualization of each orchestrator's historical reward and fee cut values on their profile page, so delegators can see whether cuts have been stable, drift slowly, or swing abruptly. Work in progress on branch
feat/reward-cut-history.
- Passive sudden cut change warning. Visible but non-blocking warning surfaced on the orchestrator profile (and potentially the leaderboard) whenever a sudden cut change is detected in that orchestrator's history. Delegators see it before they ever initiate a delegation, not only at confirmation. Copy stays factual.
- Native cut change notifications. Explorer-maintained notification mechanism so delegators can be told when their orchestrator's reward or fee cut changes, without depending on third-party bots. First delivery rail is the Web Notification API (browser-side, opt-in, no external infrastructure).
Not included:
- Protocol-level changes (effective-round delay on cut updates, slashing for abusive cut changes). These require LIPs and protocol team work and are tracked separately.
- Additional notification rails beyond the Web Notification API (email, Telegram, Discord, wallet-native). Can be added later if demand justifies it.
Tracking
Success Criteria
- Delegators can view a reward/fee cut history chart on every orchestrator profile in the Explorer.
- Orchestrators with a detected sudden cut change in their history display a passive warning on their profile, before delegation is initiated.
- Delegators can opt in to browser notifications and receive them when an orchestrator they delegate to changes their reward or fee cut.
- A written investigation report quantifies the historical incidence of the sudden cut change pattern and is used to inform follow-up protocol-team conversations.
- All user-facing copy uses the term sudden cut change and avoids accusatory language.
Goal
Delegators can see an orchestrator's reward/fee cut history at a glance, are passively warned when sudden cut changes are detected, and can opt in to native notifications when cuts change on orchestrators they delegate to.
Context
The Livepeer protocol allows orchestrators to change their reward cut and fee cut at any time, with changes taking effect within roughly two hours (only the last ~10% of blocks in a round are locked). This has enabled a recurring pattern observed in the network: an orchestrator advertises very low cuts (often 0%) to attract stake, then rapidly raises one or both cuts — sometimes to 100% — and farms a disproportionate share of rewards before delegators can react.
The Explorer today surfaces only the current reward and fee cut values. There is no passive signal about historical volatility, and no native notification path when values change. Some delegators rely on the community-maintained Vires Telegram bot, but coverage across the delegator base is partial and newly-onboarded delegators arrive with no prior signal about an orchestrator's historical behavior.
The two-hour round lock was originally intended to give delegators time to react before the next round, but in practice unbonding requires user action within that short window and most delegators are not watching the network in real time. The net result is a recurring trust problem: well-behaved orchestrators are visually grouped alongside orchestrators exhibiting this pattern, and value is periodically extracted from delegators who acted in good faith on the information the Explorer showed them.
This epic covers the near-term Explorer-only work that does not require protocol changes. Longer-term protocol options (cut change effective-round delay, slashing) are out of scope here and tracked separately.
Scope
Included:
feat/reward-cut-history.Not included:
Tracking
Success Criteria