Spotlight: Orion Protocol (ORN)
For this special edition of Polylastic’s Spotlight series, we will be covering the successful and widely utilized Orion Protocol. A decentralized platform that acts as a liquidity aggregator for decentralized and centralized exchanges, Orion Protocol is a gateway to the entire crypto market. Its utility token, ORN, powers the Orion Protocol. Let’s get right into a detailed examination of this protocol, including a rundown of its history and how it works.
Orion Protocol’s Origins
In 2018, renowned blockchain developer Alexey Koloskov and successful blockchain founder and entrepreneur Kal Ali embarked on a vision to decentralize centralized liquidity by combining CEXs, DEXs, and swap pools into one location. After over a year of composing a detailed plan to bring this undertaking to life, and with the support of a growing team of experts in a variety of areas, Orion Protocol was launched in 2020. It was an instant success with its initial token sale dubbed the most successful token sale of the year.
Orion Terminal’s public mainnet launch took place in March of 2021, unveiling the world’s first decentralized liquidity aggregator. It received a huge amount of network activity right out of the gate, and user feedback was overwhelmingly positive. The Orion Protocol continues to reach new milestones and set new records in the network activity, as development remains in full force and new integrations are continuously implemented.
What Is Orion Protocol?
The cryptocurrency market can seem overwhelming with so many DEXs and CEXs available for trading cryptocurrency. Finding the best rates and uncovering trading fees for each of these exchanges can be difficult and time-consuming. Orion Protocol provides cryptocurrency users and traders with the best rates for trading tokens and coins across multiple exchange markets and platforms, through Orion Terminal — a platform that seamlessly aggregates bottomless liquidity from major centralized and decentralized exchanges. Powerful trading tools are provided in one easy-to-use platform.
Additionally, Orion Protocol offers a suite of other products for consumers and businesses including:
- Orion Margin + Lending — Users can earn passive income on assets.
- Orion Developer Kit — Allows anyone to build decentralized apps on the protocol.
- Orion Price Oracle: Enables a price oracle that is resilient to price manipulation.
- Orion DEX Kit: Allows blockchains to quickly build chain-specific DEXs.
- Orion Liquidity Boost Plugin: A pluggable liquidity source to any CEX or DEX.
- Orion Enterprise Widget: Allows tokenized projects to purchase tokens directly from their platform.
- Orion Collateral Optimization: Allows for the transaction of large quantities of assets without the associated risks.
- Orion Wallet Swap SDK: Allows users of third-party crypto wallets the ability to access Orion’s liquidity via a swap widget.
Additional offerings include:
- Orion Global Liquidity Pool
- Orion Launchpad Liquidity
- Orion NFT Aggregator
- Orion NFT Oracle
How Does Orion Protocol Work?
Orion Protocol collects liquidity from a large number of decentralized and centralized exchanges ensuring that users can get the best rates and lowest fees for their trades. The system collects the liquidity from exchanges to transform it into a single API that finds the best routes for users.
The ORN token is the native utility token of the Orion Protocol ecosystem. It is required for payments, staking, participation, and the unlocking of advantageous network access with discounts on trading, oracle usage, and Protocol access.
Governing the protocol is a staking mechanism, called Delegated Proof of Broker. This fulfills every function on the protocol from order execution, clearing, and governance of choosing a broker, to name a few, via a decentralized brokerage.
DPoB consists of two core components:
- Brokers with exchange accounts run Orion Broker Software, automatically executing trades routed from the liquidity aggregator. Brokers are chosen to execute trades based on how much ORN, Orion’s native token, they stake.
- Non-Broker Stakers stake ORN to ‘vote’ for their choice of Broker based on the variable benefit share offered. Brokers are incentivized to offer them attractive rates to grow their stake and increase their chances of being chosen.
It should also be noted that safeguards are in place to ensure the safety and security of user assets, which Orion Protocol prioritizes.
- Brokers never get access to traders’ accounts or funds.
- Traders’ assets are protected by smart contracts.
- Traders’ assets are protected by broker collateral held during the brokers’ tenure.
The Future of Orion Protocol
Orion Protocol has been delivering on the promise of aggregating a vast variety of CEX, DEX, and swap pools into one decentralized platform, making crypto trading easy and most advantageous for users. With its many other offerings and its strong track record in creating first-in-class utility, Orion protocol is certainly a project to watch closely as it continues to build out and expand its reach.
In Closing
We hope you enjoyed this edition of Polylastic’s Spotlight series as we covered Orion Protocol! The Polylastic team hopes that you gained insight into this project and its native token, ORN. This concludes the latest edition of “Spotlight,” and we look forward to bringing you a more in-depth analysis of other exciting projects in the space. Thank you for reading and stay tuned!
