Orion protocol is a crypto exchange that aggregates different blockchain products and services, here is the interview..
Describe what is Orion Protocol and who it’s meant for?
Orion Protocol is building the decentralized gateway to the digital asset market. The digital asset market is incredibly fragmented, with different asset types across different exchanges built on different blockchains. Orion seeks to solve the fragmentation of crypto markets, NFTs marketplaces, and assets from traditional finance by eventually aggregating them into one place: Orion Terminal.
Built on the most advanced liquidity aggregator ever developed, Orion Protocol is building the non-custodial portal to the entire digital asset market aggregating liquidity across DEXs, CEXs, and swap pools in one, decentralized platform for the first time.
The layer 2 solution enables users access to deep, cross-chain liquidity in one place, enabling access to the best price in the market without the need to ever give up their assets.
Orion Protocol is more than just an aggregator. Alongside flagship solution Orion Terminal for traders, we’re building over a dozen solutions for blockchains, exchanges, and crypto projects, resulting in over eighteen revenue streams on the protocol. The Orion ecosystem has been built with ORN holders in mind. Every transaction across the multiple solutions on the protocol adds to Daily Protocol Volume, bringing lucrative rewards for stakers.
What are the biggest strengths of your team?
While I would say the work ethic of the team is incredible, our biggest strength is our adaptability.
From inception in 2018, Orion was initially built out of the need for an intermediary solution that bridges the gap between the decentralized and centralized worlds of crypto. At the time, 95% of liquidity was held on centralized exchanges, forcing traders to trust large monopolized exchanges with their assets in order to access the liquidity they need to trade – leaving traders at risk. DeFi projects have since arisen to provide traders with access to liquidity while retaining ownership of their assets, but often lack the liquidity, trading pairs, user experience, and features traders are looking for.
What we are building bridges these two worlds, but in the wake of other platforms entering the ‘hybrid aggregation’ space, we have continued to evolve our offering at a rapid pace in order to stay ahead of the curve. From inception, we’ve paid close attention to our predecessors and identified one of the major causes of failure is the lack of substantial revenue streams: focusing on one solution, one product, and one audience. A mature Orion Terminal will aggregate different assets, across different exchanges, and different blockchains, from crypto to NFTs to stocks and commodities.
Alongside growing our offering significantly through partnerships, we’ve continued to identify problems and gaps in the market and build solutions accordingly. As such, we’ve developed an ever-growing number of revenue streams across over a dozen solutions for traders, crypto projects, blockchains, and exchanges – each with the ORN token at its core.
Do you have any partners that are working with you?
Orion Protocol has amassed over 60 partners in the last year and we have ambitious plans to continue to add to our ever-growing ecosystem.
A robust infrastructure is integral to Orion’s success. As a chain-agnostic protocol, we launched our main net on Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, with plans announced to integrate Cardano, Polkadot, Avalanche, Huobi’s Eco Chain, Fantom, Holochain, and Elrond.
Orion’s expansive broker network includes Injective Protocol, Mettalex, BitMax, KuCoin, MXC, and AcheronTrading to provide cross-exchange liquidity to the platform, with Chainlink collateralizing the decentralized brokerage at the core of the broker network.
To drive greater accessibility of the protocol, we’ve partnered with the likes of COTI, PlasmaPay, and MobiePay for FIAT on-ramp, as well as Alliance Block to provide compliant access to traditional finance. Meanwhile, Bonsai, the AI financial assistant that simplifies the process of buying, selling, sending, and receiving digital assets by allowing orders to be made via text or even voice commands, will be built on Orion Protocol, allowing for fast, convenient management of user assets across the digital asset market (including cryptocurrencies, stocks, and commodities).
Security is of utmost importance to us. As such, we’ve partnered with the likes of Certik for auditing, and Polkacover, Insured, and Bridge Mutual for decentralized coverage for traders.
We recently announced we’re building the industry’s first NFT aggregator, and have already announced partnerships with the likes of Cardano, Huobi Eco Chain, Bondly, NFTTech, and ChainGuardians.
Over the course of the next year, we plan to introduce NFTs, lending, margin trading, leveraged ETFs, derivatives, contract trading, and staking of any digital asset type to the Terminal. This will be made possible through our platform partners, including Boson Protocol, Bonded Finance, Nord Finance, Deze Network, Bot Ocean, and Kira.
We’ve also built up a huge base of over 20 clients for our DeFi liquidity solutions, including a launchpad liquidity solution, a price oracle, a liquidity boost plugin, a DEX kit, and more. Our clients include COTI, Chainlink, NORD, Polkamarkets, Poolz, DuckDAO, and many others. Every transaction made via Orion liquidity on our partners’ platforms will add to staking rewards for ORN stakers.
How does the aggregation system you described work?
Orion is a liquidity aggregator which combines decentralized exchanges, centralized exchanges, and swap pools into one place. This is all made possible through Orion’s proprietary governance mechanism, Delegated Proof of Broker. Built on a network of brokers and stakers, it fulfills every function of the protocol with the ORN token at its core.
Brokers with exchange accounts (or even exchanges themselves, such as Bitmax, Kucoin, MXC, Mettalex, and Injective) run Orion Broker Software, allowing their computers to automatically execute trades routed from the liquidity aggregator via their trading accounts. Brokers are chosen to execute trades based on how much ORN they stake, and receive a portion of fees from each trade they execute.
This fee is shared with ‘Non-Broker Stakers’, who stake ORN to ‘vote’ for the broker based on the variable reward share offered. Brokers are incentivized to offer attractive rates to Non-Broker Stakers to grow their stake, increasing their chance of being chosen. The Staking Calculator assumes an average return from broker to staker of 20% (the minimum amount required that a broker must share), in addition to 0.08% of the total transactional volume of the protocol.
The aggregation varies depending on the liquidity source – CEX executors work with API keys, whereas DEX and swap pool executors sign orders right from the multi-currency wallet using a private key.
The centralized exchange executor is simply an adapter for a particular exchange that can send Buy or Sell limit orders using the provided API key, and monitor them for fulfillment. Meanwhile, a decentralized exchange module is designed to connect to a DEX/swap pool in the same way that the order-matching engine connects to a centralized exchange. The exchange executor for a DEX uses a private key provided by a multi-currency wallet to generate, sign, and validate transactions tailored for the DEX on different blockchains. Because the transactions are signed before sending, the private key does not need to be exposed to the web. Nevertheless, security for this operation is paramount.
Do you have any development plans you’d like to share?
We have an incredibly exciting roadmap ahead of us. As a decentralized gateway to the digital asset market, Orion Protocol has been, and always will be, chain-agnostic. Orion Terminal is currently on Ethereum and Binance, with Polkadot, Cardano, HECO, Fantom, Avalanche, and Elrond to be integrated.
While we are yet to aggregate the market in its entirety (after all, it’s no small feat just two weeks after launch) the hardest part has been achieved. DEX and swap pool aggregators already existed, but for the first time ever, we are providing decentralized access to centralized liquidity. Our main net was a huge step towards that – we’ve already built the framework and the proprietary tech, and now we’ll continue to build on this to create the portal to the digital asset market.
Over the course of the next year, we plan to introduce NFTs, lending, margin trading, leveraged ETFs, derivatives, contract trading, and staking of any digital asset type to the Terminal, through partners like Injective.
However, as we’ve said, our terminal is just one solution. We have 18 revenue streams including an NFT aggregator, a launchpad liquidity solution, a price oracle, a liquidity boost plugin, a DEX kit, and a lot more.
Our next major milestone is introducing the main net staking. Rather than inflating our token supply for rewards, our token is supply capped, and ORN holders generate rewards via transaction fees on the protocol. Each of our solutions adds to our daily protocol volume, increasing rewards for our stakers.
What’s the added value of Orion protocol in comparison with other exchanges?
In aggregating major exchanges into one place, Orion Terminal currently helps traders save their time, money, and assets.
Traders no longer need to waste time exchange-hopping: traders will be able to access major sources of liquidity in one place. Eventually, this will encompass the entire crypto market.
Traders no longer need to worry about finding the best price for their assets: by aggregating the order books of multiple exchanges, Orion Terminal guarantees the best prices possible, with almost zero spread and zero slippage. Not to mention the arbitrage opportunities associated with aggregating multiple exchanges into one place!
Traders no longer need to risk their assets to access liquidity; traders simply connect their wallet and execute their order across major centralized exchanges without the need for any exchange accounts.
What sets us apart from aggregators though, is our focus on the development of our ecosystem – of which Orion Terminal is just one part. Not only will multiple solutions revenue streams ensure the longevity of Orion Protocol itself, but will benefit ORN holders and stakers, too:
Unrivaled token utility
Increased Daily Protocol Volume
Lucrative staking returns
Removal of ORN from circulation
Sustainability of the Orion Protocol business
How are you aiming to provide scalability to your service?
Fragmentation is a critical issue, and this goes beyond the fragmentation of liquidity across exchanges through to the lack of interoperability between blockchains themselves. Although cross-chain systems are gaining traction, I believe the industry is still too siloed to evolve to a state of full interoperability without a solution that sits across the entire market – impeding scalability.
As a chain-agnostic protocol, we’re working with the biggest blockchains in the space to integrate them into the protocol, including Ethereum, Cardano, Polkadot, Binance Smart Chain, Huobi’s ECO Chain, Avalanche, and Elrond.
Each chain brings its own benefits (including near-instant transactions and incredibly low fees), but together they enable us to build a protocol that delivers the security, interoperability, and scalability that the DeFi space needs. Together, they will enable us to build the only decentralized portal to the digital asset market.