Kal Ali | October 19 2020
Orion Protocol was welcomed to the Binance English Telegram Group for an AMA, with their 130,000 strong community, to discuss all things Orion, from our b2c solutions, to our roadmap, and the issues we're solving for the wider crypto community.
Host: It is my pleasure to introduce to you all to Alexey Koloskov, the co-founder and CEO of Orion Protocol. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Alexey: Hi everyone, I’m Alexey Koloskov! I’m Orion Protocol’s CEO and Co-Founder, and my background spans the two worlds of traditional finance and DeFi. I started my journey in the crypto space in 2016 as Chief Architect and Creator of the Waves DEX - the most successful decentralized exchange to date. Prior to this, I spent years creating software for some of the largest international banks, including Deutsche Bank and UniCredit.
Now, I’m incredibly proud to be leading the Orion Protocol team in building what we believe will be the future of finance. Integral to our development and success will be through establishing strong partnerships with key entities in the space. Binance is one of them!
Host: Thank you Alexey for that quick introduction! We’re excited to be hosting this session with you and would love to learn more about what Orion Protocol has to offer. Would you please share with us a little about the project?
Alexey: Orion Protocol was born out of the need for an intermediate solution that bridges the gap between the centralized and decentralized worlds of crypto. We aggregate the liquidity, order books, and trading pairs of every CEX, DEX, and liquidity pool into one decentralized platform to provide access to the entire crypto market in one place.
In doing so, we’ve created the first decentralized gateway to the entire crypto market: Orion Terminal. Traders can trade across any exchange without ever giving up their private keys, even exchanges they don’t have accounts with, at the best price at any given time.
Alongside the terminal, we’ve built an array of industry-critical solutions on the protocol, all powered by the ORN token. Our roadmap includes a lending solution, a price oracle and a high-margin DEX, while our B2B division provides liquidity solutions for crypto projects, blockchains, and exchanges.
You can learn more about our roadmap below:
Host: Moving into segment one I will be asking Alexey a few questions so we can learn a bit about what Orion protocol is all about!
Question 1: What problems does Orion Protocol solve, both for the community and the wider industry?
Alexey: Mainstream adoption of crypto is currently hindered by the fragmentation of the industry. There are tens of thousands of tokens across hundreds of exchanges with different interfaces, fees, and processes, which can be daunting for newcomers.
Crypto is particularly siloed into centralized and decentralized entities, and is currently dominated by centralized exchanges. As new users enter the space, there’s a clear demand for these intermediaries who mirror the centralized finance entities that consumers are used to, typically providing greater liquidity, improved user experiences, and act as a stepping-stone towards true decentralized finance.
Yet traders are being forced to trust large monopolized exchanges, prone to the very issues that crypto is supposed to eliminate, with their assets in order to access substantial liquidity - leaving traders at risk. As KuCoin’s recent $200million hack has shown us, “not your keys, not your coins” remains ever true.
As we’ve seen from the huge growth in DEXs and liquidity pools, traders are increasingly drawn to DeFi nowl. But despite DEX volume reaching $23.6 billion in September, it still accounts for just 14% of overall trading volume - DEXs still lack the liquidity, trading pairs, features, and user experience that professional traders demand.
Host: For our second question, Why would the Binance community be interested in Orion Protocol?
Alexey: As traders, I'm sure many here have experienced the frustration of browsing multiple exchanges to find the best price and the right trading pairs, all without compromising their assets. Such a variety of exchanges has made discrepancy in asset price the norm, yet filled the market with arbitrage opportunities.
Orion Terminal helps traders save TIME, MONEY, and their ASSETS, enabling them to trade across all major exchanges, at the best prices, without ever giving up their private keys.
TIME: traders no longer need to waste time exchange-hopping. Orion’s Order Matching Engine is built into a traditional exchange interface which connects to dozens of different exchanges in real time, providing the largest list of supported currencies on the market. For the first time, traders can access the liquidity of the entire crypto market in one place, including 10,000 trading pairs.
MONEY: traders no longer need to worry about finding the best price for their assets. By aggregating every order book in the market, Orion Terminal allows the trade of cryptocurrencies at the most advantageous prices, enabling Orion to pass the savings to its users. This provides the best prices and some of the lowest fees possible, with almost zero spread and zero slippage. On top of this, we’re providing unrivalled arbitrage opportunities without the need to open and manage any accounts.
ASSETS: traders no longer need to risk their assets to access liquidity. Orion will allow users to transfer assets directly to an external wallet immediately after they have been purchased, meaning that no funds need to be held on the platform. Cold storage and user-controlled wallets vastly reduce the risks of hacking, theft, and downtime that is common in centralized exchanges. Traders simply connect their wallet and execute their order across any major exchange - even those they don’t have accounts with.
Through Orion Terminal, traders can still access Binance liquidity, and more, in a totally decentralized way. Embedded within the terminal are robust trading tools that provide traders with all of the news, market analysis, and trading signals in real-time to conduct the most intelligent trades - alongside features like arbitrage and large order fulfilment.
Additionally, a key focus of ours has been on developing our product offering further through strategic integrations to be launched post main net, including (but not limited to):
- Decentralized social copying of successful traders’ strategies.
- Decentralized staking of any digital asset (including stable coins, digital fiat, and NFTs).
- And a bridge between the traditional capital market and crypto aimed at offering traditional finance entities a singular, compliant, and non-custodial gateway to the entire crypto market.
As I said, we’re here to build the future of finance. And so by solving this fragmentation, by aggregating the crypto market in one place, we’re able to not only bridge the gaps between the centralized and decentralized worlds of crypto...
We’re building the foundations on which to bridge the worlds of crypto, traditional finance, and real world assets.
Host: Thanks for sharing Alexey. That was a very detailed response! Wow! This leads me into the next question we have which may be of interest to some!
If you do not mind sharing, Who do you see as your biggest competitors in the space?
Alexey: Because we don’t compete with exchanges, but aggregate them all, we don’t feel there are any true competitors currently.
As we aggregate the liquidity of every CEX, DEX, and swap pool, the growth and development of any new or existing exchange or aggregator will only further benefit the Orion ecosystem.
It's mutually beneficial, though - rather than taking users away from exchanges, we’re providing another point of access to their liquidity, allowing users to trade across exchanges they don’t even have accounts with!
We see this as particularly fruitful for CEXes who are already actively transcending into the DeFi space. We already have a number of partnerships with major exchanges, OTC desks, and market-makers as 'power brokers' ahead of our Main Net launch this quarter, with more to be announced very soon. This partnership enables CEXes to decentralize their centralized liquidity without any additional effort, development, or costs.
That’s why we don’t compete, we complete.
Currently, we have a working test net in its third phase of beta testing, with public main net launch scheduled for later this quarter.
We’re adding in new beta testers every day to stress test the Terminal, with a $10,000 bounty program for the most intricate bugs found!
Host: Calling all beta testers to join the Orion Protocol bounty program! If you’re keen, click on the link shared below! You can apply to join here.
Host: Question 4: What are the major utilities of your ORN token and how does it provide value to holders?
Alexey: Speculative value of a token isn’t sustainable long term. That's why it's been a huge focus of ours to ensure deep utility of our ORN token across the entire protocol to create utility value, integrating it into all main transactions to take the form of an internal currency or utility token.
The token utility of each solution lies in the integral role the ORN plays in the decentralized brokerage, with every transaction acting as a trade being carried out by a broker.
ORN is the fuel to our ecosystem: no product or feature can work without it. We have ONE protocol, EIGHT products, THIRTEEN revenue streams, all with the ORN token at their core.
Because it’s so critical to our protocol, we’re committed to ensuring the sustainability of the ORN token for us, and holders. It’s supply-capped, meaning new tokens are never minted beyond the TGE, while efforts are in place to strategically and frequently remove tokens from circulating supply.
The holder benefits are pretty expansive, including discounted trading, advanced features, protocol access, and lucrative staking returns. Key benefits include:
Discounted trading: Orion Terminal users will be able to save up to 20% on standard trading fees by paying with ORN.
Advanced Features: Advanced features like arbitrage will be available for premium users based on their ORN holdings.
Priority Access: While the first product on our roadmap is Orion Terminal, we've got a lot more in the pipeline. Holding ORN will provide first access to Orion Margin Trading (the first 100x decentralized margin trading) and Orion Lending.
Staking: Our proprietary staking mechanism DPoB is comprised of two core components: Brokers and Non-Broker Stakers (NBS).
Brokers with exchange accounts (or exchanges themselves) run Orion Broker Software, automatically executing trades routed from Orion's liquidity aggregator based on how much ORN they stake. NBS stake ORN to ‘vote’ for their choice of Broker based on the variable reward share offered. Brokers and stakers receive a portion of fees from each trade they execute, with rewards generated from our revenue streams instead of minting new tokens.
You can find even more holder benefits here.
You mentioned staking as one of the holder benefits. Can you explain your staking offering in more detail?
Alexey: I’ll break this down in three parts: pre-staking, liquidity mining, and main net staking.
In July, we developed an initiative to facilitate and incentivize staking of our ORN token prior to main net launch. Through a multi-exchange pre-staking program, Orion Protocol’s ORN token can be staked on BitMax and KuCoin for staking rewards at a 39% est APR currently. The initiative provides immediate staking incentives to ORN token holders that are traditionally only made available to developers and validators for testing of the network performance and robustness, prior to the launch of our internal staking program this quarter.
ORN will be launching its first official liquidity mining program via Uniswap tomorrow at 8am UTC.
The program will reward ORN Liquidity Providers (LPs) with 30,000 ORN per week for ORN/ETH. This reward amount will be distributed proportionally to the amount of liquidity each person provides, therefore the APR per person will depend on how many LPs participate.
As per the name, our Delegated Proof of Broker staking mechanism is built on a network of Brokers running our Orion Broker Software with accounts across multiple exchanges (or exchanges themselves). As I touched on earlier, this software allows their computers to automatically execute trades routed from the liquidity aggregator via brokers trading accounts - depending on which exchange is currently offering the best price. Brokers are chosen to execute trades based on how much ORN they stake, and receive a portion of fees from each trade they execute.
Brokers are incentivized to offer highly attractive rates to NBS to grow their stake, increasing their chance of being chosen. As no new tokens are minted beyond the TGE, rewards are generated via Orion’s various revenue streams, preserving the value of the ORN token over time.
Host: Thank you Alexey! We’ve learnt so much about Orion Protocol in this short amount of time.
Alexey: Thank you guys for such interesting questions!
Community questions:
Why did Orion Protocol choose Chainlink as oracle and not Band or DIA? How does DeFiner plan to prevent oracles from providing false information? How do you check the received data?
Alexey: Yes, indeed we partnered recently with Chainlink to fully Collateralize Orion’s Decentralized Brokerage. Price oracles are essential for implementing trustless trade settlement with decentralized brokers. Chainlink’s price reference data framework provides Orion Terminal users several guarantees around:
High Quality Price Data - Chainlink price feeds are sourced from numerous premium data aggregators, ensuring the price feed is able to maintain strong market coverage across all trading environments.
Secure and Reliable Price Updates - Chainlink oracles are secured by a decentralized network of independent, Sybil resistant nodes ran by leading blockchain DevOps, with price updates occurring every small deviation in price, ensuring the price feed updates alongside market volatility.
Transparent Operations - Chainlink price feeds are supported by on-chain visualizations, empowering Orion users to track the real-time performance of the oracle network and its individual node operators.
Proven Performance - Chainlink is the most widely used oracle network in the market, counted on by 40+ teams to secure billions of dollars in user funds live on mainnet.
Some of the most important and practical issues in crypto: liquidity, custody, accessibility and scalability. How does Orion solve these problems?
Alexey: Great question - we agree! Currently, no solution in market offers traders the liquidity, custody, and accessibility they need in one platform.
Liquidity: Decentralized liquidity aggregators available only pull from DEXes, leaving out a major source of liquidity from CEXes. We're combining the best of both worlds, providing access to centralized liquidity in a decentralized way.
Custody: The liquidity aggregators that do pull from centralized exchanges are themselves centralized, custodial solutions. On Orion Terminal, you simply connect your wallet and execute your order, without ever giving up your assets.
Accessibility: Most decentralized aggregators carry ERC20 tokens only, while those that are multi-chain are custodial and therefore not decentralized. Meanwhile, we're providing over 1,000 token pairs and counting - not limited to ERC20.
Scalability: Swapping protocols have become popular, yet they’re often not large enough to sustain increasing demand. Some pools could be wiped out with as little as a single $5k order and leaves the token price susceptible to manipulation. By aggregating every order book, we provide the best prices and lowest fees in market with almost zero spread - and zero slippage.
Orion Protocol exists to solve some of the largest problems in DeFi by aggregating the entire crypto market into one decentralized platform – pulling from every major CEX, DEX, and swapping pool.
Does Orion Protocol have any Coin Burn / BuyBack system or any Token Burn plan to increase the value of Token & attract Investors towards Stake to invest?
Alexey: ORN is supply capped, and we're actively removing tokens from circulation through a number of methods:
Staking: our non-inflationary staking mechanism DPoB encourages all parties to stake and remove their ORN tokens from the circulating supply in return for maximum results. Rewards generated are then compounded into their stake, further reducing circulating supply. Orion never mints tokens for rewards; DPoB stakers receive rewards generated via Orion’s various revenue streams, preserving the necessity of the underlying ORN token.
Licensing fees: 100% of licensing fees generated from our stack of DeFi solutions will be used to buy ORN tokens off the market and remove them from circulation.
Refunds: Every ORN token that is refunded (via our DYCO token sale) will be destroyed, removing up to 100% of circulating supply. Only purchased tokens will be in circulation until the 16th month.
Can you elaborate more on your staking and management? I am interested in joining your Liquidity Mining, how do I become a liquidity provider and what benefits will I get from joining?
Alexey: In about 18 hours tomorrow at 8am UTC start our liquidity mining program. To join the program you need to provide liquidity on uniswap fro ORN-ETH pair (currently 1 pair for the beginning) and stake LP tokens (which Uniswap gives you after you provide liquidity to the pool) to our official LP smart contract on our site.
Currently, reward is 30,000 ORN for liqudiity provider per week!!!
Currently, the Liquidity mining and Yield farming models are built by many DeFi projects. Does Orion Protocol have similar planning to create diversity and encourage users to contribute..?
Alexey: Our recent integration with KIRA Network will allow for non-custodial staking of any asset type on Orion Terminal, where tokens and their staking derivatives can be both staked and traded at the same time.
This will allow Orion Protocol to further expand its staking offering beyond our native ORN token, allowing Orion Terminal traders to stake multiple assets using ORN and other token derivatives as leverage.
Stake-Farming: Traders will be able to earn revenues from staking ANY digital asset type, including stablecoins and even NFT’s.
Leveraged Staking: Stakeable assets will be able to earn revenue on multiple chains at the same time, enabling traders to utilize full potential of capital without high risk factors.
Liquid Staking: All tokens at stake will remain liquid allowing traders to transfer value of stake and yield-farm while earning block and fee rewards.
Auditing plays an important intermediary role in the development of DeFi projects. What audit methods has Orion applied in project development? Can you talk more about it?
Alexey: Leading blockchain security firm CertiK (whose clients include Binance, Bancor, Shapeshift, and many others) is underway with a full-scale security audit of Orion Protocol, including VAPT of the smart contracts, and Substrate modules ahead of Main Net launch this quarter.
Our private mainnet is being rigorously audited to ensure functionality, automation integrity, and overall security optimization prior to the onboarding of inaugural brokers.
Furthermore, any open-source software on the respective brokers’ side will be also fully audited in addition to our domestic code to ensure the stability of the Terminal’s network and assure users that everything connected to Orion Protocol’s tools, including Orion Terminal, is safe to use under all circumstances.
Every project built on Orion Protocol will be referred to CertiK for security auditing, improving the integrity of Orion Protocol’s broader ecosystem, making sure they are in accordance with up to date security standards.
What does your roadmap for 2020 look like? Name some important milestones you hope to achieve. What are the major developments lined up for $ORN this quarter?
Alexey: Our flagship product Orion Terminal will be launching this quarter.
Our B2B division is developing liquidity solutions for businesses in the space including blockchains, exchanges, and crypto projects. This year, alongside the terminal, we’ll be launching the most comprehensive Price Oracle in market, alongside an Enterprise Trade Widget for crypto projects with non-blockchain clients.
Our roadmap for the first half of 2021 also includes lending and high-margin DEX for traders, as well as a Liquidity Boost Plugin for exchanges. We have even more incredible solutions we're working on, not yet added to our roadmap! Stay tuned for more on that coming soon.
Critically, all solutions will always be powered by ORN 🚀
How to participate in the testnet? What is the staking mechanism? When is the mainnet expected to go live? What is the relationship between Elrond and orion?
Alexey: To participate in TestNet just register here.
MainNet is expected in Q4, currently it’s finishing the final stages of beta testing and onboarding of the first brokers. With Elrond we’re researching the ways of performing tradign setlement logic on their public blockchain to increase speed and throughput o trasanctions on Ethereum as well as reduce tx cost.
How Orion can combine Decentralized and Centralized advantages in the easiest way?
Alexey: I see this divide between centralized/decentralized entities as one of the one of the biggest barriers to crypto expansion. While we are a DeFi platform absolutely, we understand that the majority of liquidityexists on centralized exchanges.
The most valuable opportunities will come from hybrid solutions bridging the gap between the centralized and decentralized worlds of crypto: building on decentralized technologies in the most critical parts of the system like custody and final settlement, while pulling liquidity from the major players in market — centralized exchanges.
Critical to the sustainability of the industry will be through providing access to the benefits and opportunities across the market, but in a totally decentralized way. And we're doing just that.
Liquidity is very important for low slippage and low spread in crypto asset trading. How does Orion Protocol acts as the most advanced liquidity aggregator in market?
Alexey: $ORN will play import role in DeFi ecosystem, including trading, lending and and other types of dApps. The demand of $ORN will steady increase along with the number of brokers due to high profitability from providing liquidtity on the platform.
I totally agree with you here - liquidity is paramount. DeFi projects have arisen to provide traders with access to liquidity while retaining ownership of their assets, but DEXes often lack the liquidity, trading pairs, and user experience traders are looking for. As a result, high-slippage occurs due to the limited liquidity and high spread on these platforms.
By aggregating the liquidity, order book depth, and trade pairs of the entire crypto market into one seamlessly aggregated orderbook, we provide the best prices and lowest fees in market with almost zero spread - and zero slippage.
Host: It has been so great to have you, @koloale with us today to talk more about the Orion Protocol. Once again chat, here are some important links for you to follow and to get the most up to date announcements from the project:
ORN is currently trading on Binance. Trade now:
👉 binance.com/en/trade/ORN_BTC
👉 binance.com/en/trade/ORN_USDT