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By the end of this tutorial you’ll have bonded LPT to an orchestrator through the Livepeer Explorer and confirmed a live delegator position that earns a share of that orchestrator’s rewards. This is a learning path. For the decision-making behind each step — how to pick a good orchestrator, or how to claim and compound later — follow the linked how-to guides.

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Before you start

You need all three of these to be true:
  • your LPT is in a self-custody wallet on Arbitrum One (not Ethereum mainnet),
  • you have a small ETH balance on Arbitrum One for gas,
  • your wallet can connect to explorer.livepeer.org.
If your LPT is on Ethereum mainnet or an exchange, bridge or withdraw it to Arbitrum One first — see Acquire LPT on Arbitrum. You cannot delegate from Ethereum mainnet.

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Step 1 — Choose an orchestrator

Open the Explorer, filter to active orchestrators, and pick one that is currently active, has a reliable recent reward-call history, and acceptable commission terms (rewardCut low, feeShare high). This choice matters more than any other — a great commission headline with weak reliability can earn you less than a slightly worse commission with near-perfect reliability. Use the full checklist in Choose an orchestrator before committing a meaningful amount.

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Step 2 — Connect your wallet

On explorer.livepeer.org, click Connect Wallet and connect the wallet holding your Arbitrum-side LPT.

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Step 3 — Open the orchestrator and start the delegate flow

Navigate to your chosen orchestrator’s profile, confirm it still shows Active, then click Delegate and enter the amount of LPT to bond. You don’t have to bond your whole balance — you can start partial and add more later from the same wallet.

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Step 4 — Sign two transactions

1

Approve

The first transaction authorizes the BondingManager contract to move the LPT amount you entered. No stake is bonded yet.
2

Bond

The second transaction actually bonds your LPT and attributes your stake to the orchestrator.
Both are on Arbitrum and cost a small amount of ETH in gas.

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Step 5 — Verify your position

Return to your account page in the Explorer and confirm you now see:
  • a bonded LPT balance,
  • the orchestrator address your stake points to,
  • a pending rewards area that will update in later rounds.
If you delegated mid-round, don’t expect immediate reward growth. First accrual typically appears in the next round, after the orchestrator calls reward().

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One warning before your first claim

Don’t claim too early. If you call claimEarnings() before your orchestrator has called reward() for the current round, you can skip that round’s rewards entirely. The Explorer may not warn you. Safe default: claim late in the round, after your orchestrator has already called reward(). Full details in Manage your delegation.

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You’re delegated

Your position is live. From here, the work shifts to managing it:

Manage your delegation

Claim, compound, redelegate, and exit — with the timing edge cases.

Understand your returns

How rewardCut, feeShare, and inflation shape what you earn.