The Orion Protocol, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform built on the self-proclaimed "most advanced liquidity aggregator ever developed," released a staking calculator on February 23 to allow ORN token holders to calculate rewards.
The Orion Terminal, a decentralized gateway aggregating the liquidity of every CEX, DEX, and swap pool, remains the platform’s flagship product. With the tool, users can access the entire cryptocurrency market without having to give private keys.
Alexy Koloskov and Kal Ali founded the protocol in 2018 after receiving a $300,000 seed investment. The project netted around $3,410,000 via a June 2020 private sale.
With the much-awaited staking calculator, token holders can now rely on Daily Protocol Volume, the amount of ORN staked and the ORN token price to determine available rewards on the Orion Terminal.
The first phase of Orion Terminal launched on December 15 after a closed group of brokers tested the platform. Blockchain security firm CertiK also conducted a full-scale audit and will continue to work as the mainnet becomes public.
According to the Orion team, first phase terminal access was prioritized "based on share ranking through a referral scheme."
The mainnet staking platform is expected to launch in early March fully. The Orion team notes 2021 should bring lending, margin trading, leveraged ETFs, derivatives, contract trading, NFTs and staking of any digital asset type to the protocol.
A Busy Time Of Expansion For The Orion Protocol
The early February launch of the staking calculator comes amid a busy few weeks for the Orion Protocol. In late January, a Medium post announced collaboration with Boson Protocol to permit Orion Terminal traders to exchange ORN tokens for Boson’s NFTs, redeemable against real-world products, services or things.
Alongside the Orion Terminal, the Orion team has built more than a dozen liquidity solutions. These include the Orion Enterprise Trade Widget, Orion Wallet SDK, Orion DEX Kit, Orion Global Liquidity Pool and the Orion Decentralized Brokerage. The team has onboarded major clients, including a Liquidity Boost Plugin (Polkastarter), Launchpad Liquidity Solution (DuckDAO, Poolz), and an Oracle solution (Chainlink).
Work on the ORN token and protocol is underpinned by a core group of advisors collaborating with the Orion team. Key advisors include Matt Jones, a Client Partner at Accenture and Brad Townsend, founder of Latitude Services.
Understanding The Nuances Of Orion’s Staking Vision
For Daily Protocol Volume, Orion’s new staking calculator lets holders determine rewards such as if they accrued a similar daily volume as SushiSwap.
The SushiSwap protocol has surged in popularity and incentivizes participants through revenue sharing and forum-driven network efforts. At current market rates in early February, daily volume similar to SushiSwap would yield ORN holders an APY of at least 300%.
Daily Protocol Volume incorporates volume from the Orion Terminal alongside volume from twelve other DeFi solutions. As a result, ORN token holders could reap large staking rewards from only B2B products.
To bring its staking vision to life, the Orion Protocol relies on a proprietary governance mechanism known as Delegated Proof of Broker. The system allowed brokers to run Orion Broker Software and execute trades routed directly from the liquidity aggregator. Brokers receive a portion of fees after every trade. They are chosen based on the amount of staked ORN.
To incentivize brokers, fees are also shared with ‘Non-Broker Stakers’ who vote for a broker by staking ORN.
Orion Protocol’s Vision & Next Steps
The Orion Protocol was designed to offer B2B and B2C solutions to bridge the gap between the centralized and decentralized cryptocurrency worlds.
Orion continues the refinement of a price oracle that will allow investors to use live quality data to automate investment processes, as they prepare for the launch of the mainnet staking protocol in March 2021.