What is Livepeer (LPT)?

So, I need someone to explain something fundamentally basic to me: exactly what is Livepeer (LPT)?

I was casually scrolling through some alternative decentralized video encoding architectures last night—mostly because my Amazon Web Services bill for a tiny side-project streaming app is threatening to bankrupt me out of nowhere—when I stumbled onto this protocol. Every single forum thread I read kept pointing me right back to it. Cool. But I'm seriously stuck on the actual day-to-day mechanics.

What is Livepeer (LPT) doing under the hood?

Here is my dilemma. I get the broad strokes. It's a decentralized video streaming network. Awesome. But when trying to figure out what is Livepeer (LPT) at a strictly operational level, I hit a massive wall regarding the tokenomics.

My brain hurts.

I tried spinning up a node (just a local testnet sandbox to poke around). The documentation talks about "orchestrators" and "transcoders" paying Ethereum gas fees, but then suddenly this native token enters the chat. So, from a practical developer standpoint, what is Livepeer (LPT) actually functioning as here? Is it purely meant for staking? Do I strictly need LPT to pay for my video transcoding, or do broadcasters just pay in ETH while the LPT token handles network security and voting?

Help me out.

I created a quick mental checklist of my blind spots. Maybe you guys can fill these in:

• Token Utility: When people ask what is Livepeer (LPT), they usually mean the coin itself. Does delegating LPT yield worthwhile rewards if I'm not actively pushing media through a GPU?
• Hardware Demands: If I decide to become an orchestrator later, do I need monstrous hardware rigs?
• Cost Reality: Is the encoding genuinely cheaper than traditional centralized providers?

I want to migrate off legacy cloud hosting. I really do. But I need to fully grasp what is Livepeer (LPT) before I recklessly throw fiat at tokens or blindly delegate my stake to a random operator.

Has anyone here actually migrated a live-streaming app to this specific ecosystem? What were the hidden friction points? I need raw, real-world advice—not whitepaper fluff!