Token Review: Orchid (OXT)
Now let’s start with this Orchid review!
OVERVIEW
The Orchid network enables a decentralized Virtual Private Network (VPN), allowing users to buy bandwidth from a global pool of service providers. To do this, Orchid uses an ERC-20 utility token called OXT, a new VPN protocol for token-incentivized bandwidth proxying, and smart-contracts with algorithmic advertising and payment functions. Orchid's users connect to bandwidth sellers using a provider directory, and they pay using probabilistic nanopayments so Ethereum transaction fees on packages are acceptably low.
Orchid's mission is to enable people to understand and control the network activities of their computers without worrying about censorship, surveillance or intermediaries. In order to achieve this mission, they are using open source software to build solutions for a broad audience to create a probability-driven decentralized VPN market powered by probabilistic nanopayments on the Ethereum blockchain. Orchid inherits some current limitations from Ethereum in terms of payment anonymity, scalability, and censorship resistance. Additionally, their initial focus on affordable high bandwidth, low latency routing currently limits Orchid’s ability to defend against the most sophisticated theoretical traffic analysis attacks.
Orchis has 5 main goals:
- Scalability: The Orchid nanopayment system scales to a few million users sending probabilistic transactions once per second on the current Ethereum blockchain, and could potentially scale to billions of transactions per second using sharding with Ethereum 2.0.
Decentralization: All components, from nanopayments to node directory and discovery, are decentralized. There is no special trusted party with outsize influence or control in Orchid, assuming OXT stake is well distributed.
- Usability: Usability is key to wide adoption, and the anonymity the system provides per user increases with the size of the user base. For most users, using Orchid to protect their network connection is almost as simple as pressing a button.
- Simplicity: The protocol is simple to ease comprehension, implementation, and security analysis.
- Extensibility: Our core mechanisms are separable and orthogonal as far as possible to allow for easier future extension as well replacement. The nanopayment protocol and the smart contract do not interact directly with other systems.
Orchid users run a client similar to a typical VPN client for a protocol similar to OpenVPN, but using the Orchid protocol. The Orchid web client goes beyond the basic functions provided by most VPN clients and has the ability to run traffic through an integrated personal firewall. The Orchid client can be accessed via iOS, Android, macOS, Linux and (soon) Windows.
How can you create an account?
There are three ways to get access to an Orchid account right now:
- Someone could share one with you
- You can buy an account on iOs
- You can create an account with OXT
In the screenshot below you can see all the 5 steps to create and connect your account.
DEEPENING
Well, the main and basic purpose of OXT is to track who uses computing services, who provides computing services, and whether ordinary users fairly compensate ordinary providers. The OXT digital currency provides value in the Orchid network in a number of ways:
- Bandwidth provider: anyone can operate an Orchid Node, but must first stake OXT. More OXT staked = greater chance of reward in the Network
- Bandwidth user: users can pay-on-the-fly for a private, secure internet connection. To power up client, a user installs the Orchid VPN, adds OXT to a wallet and then can access the internet through a user-chosen path to ensure a secure connection anywhere in the world.
The primary reasons for this new cryptocurrency OXT are:
To have a digital currency that is specifically tied to consumption of bandwidth on the Orchid network.
To align operator incentives towards the benefit of the Orchid Network.
If you have already read some of my articles or follow my YouTube channel, you probably remember that I have already talked about Staking on several occasions. In a couple of previous YouTube videos I told you about TRX and ALGO staking.
TRX staking
ALGO staking:
In this occasion we can stake also OXT tokens.
But… how OXT staking works?
A provider stakes some number of OXT to create a stake deposit. Anyone can stake OXT on nodes using the smart contract. Clients select new nodes in proportion to their relative OXT deposit size. Larger stake deposits thus lead to more users, bandwidth and revenue.
After the tokens are locked to the deposit, they can be used for bandwidth supply immediately. If the provider wants to withdraw the tokens from the staking contract, they must begin a period of "unlocking" which involves a three-month cooldown period during which their funds cannot be used as a provider deposit or transfer to other places.
I want to see also some of its limitations.
- Network Dependence: The economic security of Orchid is limited by the economic security of Ethereum itself. An opponent who is capable of destroying or destroying the Ethereum network will naturally destroy Orchid.
- User Scalability: The current Orchid nanopayment system has an efficiency/variance tradeoff: larger face value tickets reduce the frequency of on-chain payments and transaction fees at the expense of variance.
- Payment Anonymity: Rare winning nanopayment tickets are redeemed through on-chain Ethereum transactions. Thus Orchid nanopayments are only pseudo-anonymous, and occasionally leak some information.
- Public Node Directory: The Orchid node directory is published on the Ethereum blockchain and thus is public to the world. Thus it is easy for a censoring adversary to automatically block all the listed contact IP addresses of Orchid nodes.
Coinbase, in the section "Earn", also gives you the opportunity to earn some dollars in OXT by watching short videos and answering questions correctly.
About Orchid we have discovered new things about this project!
I would like to know your opinion about Orchid and VPN!
Next Sunday I’ll introduce you a new cryptocurrency!