Alexey Koloskov | January 3 2022
Orion Protocol: 2021 in Review
- Main Net live
$83m Daily Transactional Volume ATH - Orion Pool live
50+ new assets
APRs up to ~155%
14,073,683 ORN TVL (41%) - Orion SolarFlare live
2 10x IDOs for ORN holders - Orion SDK live
First project built on Orion Protocol - Depositless Trading live
CEX liquidity, DEX functionality. Reduced steps = reduced fees - Fiat On/Off Ramp live
Accepting Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and local bank transfers - 7+ new solutions announced
NFT Aggregator, USDo Stablecoin, White Label DEX, Wallet Swap SDK, + more - 7 Exchange listings
Coinbase, Crypto.com, Bitcoin.com, Gate.io + more - 7% Supply Reduction
7.4m ORN removed from supply + more to come - 35 new partnerships
Avalanche, Fantom, Cardano, Polkadot, COTI, Poolz + more - 150+ media mentions
CoinTelegraph, Nasdaq, Yahoo Finance, Forbes, Investing.com + more - 50+ influencer features
Crypto Michaël, BitBoy, AltcoinDaily, CryptoFiend, CryptosRUs + more - 20+ events
FantomDC, Crypto.com, Cardano360, DeFi Summit, Blockdown 4.0 + more
A look back on 2021 with Alexey Koloskov
With an industry hyper-focused on ‘the next big thing’, it’s easy to overlook what has come before, what has been achieved, and the importance of laying robust foundations for growth. That is exactly what we have been doing:
2020: Orion Protocol’s conceptual stage
2021: Building foundations and stress-testing infrastructure
2022: Building on foundations to achieve marketwide adoption
2021 was a year of ups and downs for many - Orion Protocol included. Despite unpredictable markets, 2021 saw a number of incredible milestones for us. Building the industry’s first and only universal aggregator is not straightforward, which makes each milestone even more satisfying. While the launch of our Main Net nine months ago was just the start of our journey, the significance of this foundation should not be overlooked. For the first time, we enabled users decentralized access to centralized liquidity sources, directly from their wallet. No account, no KYC, just secure trading at the best prices.
We have seen several new features and solutions emerge since then, including Orion Pool, Orion SolarFlare, ‘depositless trading’, and a fiat on/offramp. Meanwhile, ORN is now listed on the biggest exchanges in crypto, including Coinbase Pro, Coinbase.com, Crypto.com, Binance, and others. We’ve partnered with industry leaders like Cardano, Fantom, Injective, and Crypto.com. We’ve featured in numerous media outlets such as Forbes, Nasdaq, Investing.com, Business Insider, and CoinTelegraph, as well as high-profile YouTube channels such as Crypto Michaël, Altcoin Daily, CryptoRus, BitBoy, and more.
The team has announced prominent new solutions as well including Orion NFT Aggregator and NFT Oracle, Orion USDo Stablecoin, Orion White Label DEX, Orion Launchpad Liquidity, Orion Wallet Swap SDK, and Margin Trading. These new features will enhance Orion Protocol’s ecosystem throughout 2022 and provide the foundations to drive more and more liquidity through the Terminal, increasing the Daily Total Volume for Main Net Staking.
Building sustainable and breakthrough technology requires patience, precision, and dedication to give you the Terminal you deserve - one that enables access to the major sources of liquidity in market without KYC, accounts, or global limitations. We have continued to build, optimize, and develop on this foundation, but there is so much still to come as we build the first decentralized gateway to the crypto market.
With industry-first solutions like our imminent Orion Bridge, our transition to a community-governed DAO, and an incredible number of integrations, partnerships, and developments underway, 2022 will hold an even bolder and brighter outlook for ORN holders - one that we are thrilled to embark upon.
Thank you for your support throughout the last year. Let us make 2022 an exceptional one. In the meantime, let’s take a look at some of our key milestones:
It’s hard to believe that the launch of Orion Terminal’s main net was just nine months ago. We have continued to optimize the UX based on user feedback throughout the year, while growing the number of pairs significantly. We reached an ATH of Daily Transactional Volume of $83 million, regularly putting us within the top 15 DEXes in market. With a strong foundation laid and onboarding processes optimized for assets, liquidity sources, and chain integrations, we’re ready to take Orion Terminal to the ‘growth’ stage this year - onboarding new assets, liquidity sources, and chains at a much faster pace.
Orion Pool enables traders a single UI for trading, swapping, staking, and governance voting. Through this development, Orion Terminal became the only platform that allowed decentralized access to both centralized exchanges and swap pools in one place. As usual, Orion will route all swap orders to the liquidity source with the best price: orders can even be split across multiple exchanges and liquidity sources to achieve the best possible price. Orion Pool will be opened up for any one to list on very shortly.
Since launch:
- 14 spotlights
- ~50+ new assets added to Orion Pool
- APRs up to ~155%
- 14,073,683 ORN TVL
Orion SDK comprises JavaScript programming library (soon to be in Python, too), documentation, interfaces and tools to enable developers to immediately start building their own powerful financial tools, harnessing the power and liquidity of the protocol, and acting as the gateway between the protocol and third parties. This iteration marked the first step towards Orion Protocol becoming available for anyone to build on - whether for personal use or financial gain. Orion SDK is the framework on which all of Orion’s upcoming B2B solutions are being developed, with over a dozen solutions for blockchains, exchanges, and crypto projects in the works.
An Orion SDK team has been created to further adoption of the SDK, both from a community and partner level, and a grant program will soon be available for projects wanting to build on the protocol. Subsequent iterations of Orion SDK will soon be launched - alongside several key B2B solutions.
Orion SolarFlare was created to drive further utility for ORN and community for ORN holders. Orion SolarFlare enables democratic and decentralized access to IDOs simply through holding ORN - without minimums, maximums, lock ups, KYC, accounts, or pool caps. In doing so, the market and the community itself determines the value of a project.
Our priority for each SolarFlare is performance and high returns for ORN holders, with the Orion team undertaking significant due diligence on each project. To date, we have seen two incredibly successful IDOs with Victoria VR and Chumbi Valley, with up to 10x returns for participants. We have had an incredible number of projects interested since launch, but we will continue to prioritize high value projects that will drive maximum returns for the community.
Due to the complexity of the Orion Protocol infrastructure and broker network, depositing into the trading smart contract was previously required in order to trade on Orion Terminal. The release of depositless trading enables users to trade across all connected exchanges on Orion Terminal without depositing into the smart contract, and marked a huge step forward for us and our community. The option to deposit into the smart contract still remains ahead of a number of upcoming features that will utilize the trading smart contract and bolster TVL, including Orion Bridge, Orion Lending, and more.
By integrating MoonPay, the leading fiat-to-crypto gateway, Orion Terminal became one of the first decentralized aggregators to offer fiat-to-crypto onboarding for its users without having to leave the terminal, enabling users to seamlessly buy and sell crypto on Orion Terminal with cash. MoonPay’s on-and-off-ramp suite of products provide an ultra smooth experience for converting between fiat and crypto using all major payment methods, including debit and credit card, local bank transfers, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay.
Alongside a number of key development milestones, another huge milestone was actualized with ORN’s listing on Coinbase. An incredible amount of due diligence goes into listings on the likes of these exchanges - many high-value, high-market cap assets that have been in circulation for far longer than ORN are still yet to be listed on Coinbase.
This was followed by listings on the likes of Crypto.com, Bitcoin.com, BUX Crypto, Gate.io, and others, with more listings to come in 2022.
The end of last year saw the first supply reduction event, with 7,400,000 ORN (7.4%) removed from total supply. With future supply reduction efforts spanning ORN committed from IDOs, trading fees, staking fees, and more, we look forward to reducing both total and circulating supply on a quarterly basis.
Last year brought about a host of new partnerships, from upcoming chain integrations like Fantom, Cardano, and Avalanche, upcoming broker integrations with the likes of Crypto.com and Injective, to upcoming B2B partnerships with the likes of COTI, Poolz, and many more.
2021 was about building the foundations and building our ecosystem through strong partners, and 2022 is about building on these foundations and building out our infrastructure through these partners.
While there are plenty more partnerships to come, we’re predominantly focused on actualizing these partnerships to bring value to both sets of communities and beyond. Naturally, the integration process takes longer than announcements, but work is underway to bring as many partnerships to fruition as possible, based on the value they bring to our ecosystem.
2021 was another incredible year for Orion in the media, with over 150 features in leading finance publications such as Nasdaq, Yahoo Finance, Forbes, International Business Times, and more, alongside major crypto publications like CoinTelegraph, Investing.com, CoinGape, Blockonomi, and ZyCrypto.
That said, it was important for us to establish our foundations before ‘mainstream’ PR, while implementing key features to simplify the user experience such as depositless trading and fiat on ramp in order to more effectively onboard users. Starting this month, Orion will be working with an established fintech PR agency to focus on growing our media attention beyond the crypto landscape and significantly ramping up our PR presence.
Orion Protocol has been featured by leading influencers regarding several features, partnerships, and launches, including CryptosRUs, Crypto Michaël, TheLazyPeon, BitBoy, AltcoinDaily, CryptoFiend, and many others.
With the recent unlock of our marketing budget, influencer activity (and more) will be significantly ramped up for subsequent launches, announcements, and developments.
We are proud to have taken part in a number of conferences and events this year alongside major leaders in the space, including Andre Cronje, Mayor Suarez, Akon, Roger Ver, Michael Kong and more. Noteable events and AMAs include Fantom Developer Conference, DeFi Summit, Blockdown 4.0, Crypto.com, Cardano360, Mettalex, and plenty more.
This year, our involvement in events will scale up beyond participation to include keynote talks, sponsorship, and even some events of our own!
Thank you all for your support so far. We are incredibly proud of what we have achieved to date to build a robust foundation for Orion Protocol, but there is so much more to come. This year, we are scaling up in every way possible, from hiring, to development, to marketing, and beyond. 2022 will be the year of driving significant volume and users to the terminal, the protocol, and each subsequent solution we build. To learn more about what’s coming next, join us for an AMA on January 7th at 3pm ET over on our YouTube channel.
Thank you for joining us on our journey in building the decentralized gateway to the crypto market. 2022 will be our year.
- Alexey Koloskov, CEO and Co-Founder of Orion Protocol