Orchid is a blockchain-based platform that enables users to have decentralized access to virtual private network (VPN) services. The goal is to let people in any part of the world get around corporate or government censorship and access Internet services freely and confidentially.
To do this, Orchid has set up a pool of connection providers that can route user traffic to help them reach their goals. In exchange for their services, these providers are paid in Orchid tokens (OXT) for the directed traffic and the computing power needed to control that traffic safely.
Orchid began developing a decentralized bandwidth marketplace in 2017. Dr. Steven Waterhouse (Co-Founder of Pantara Capital, Board Member of Bitstamp, and Co-Founder of RPX), Brian Fox (creator of Bash and has over 20 years of open source contributions), Jay Freeman (author of Cydia, the App Store for jailbroken iPhones, and Impactor software for the iPhone), and Gustav Simonsson (white hat hacker and ex-security researcher for the Ethereum Foundation) are among the early founding team members.
Orchid Labs, the company that created the Orchid protocol, raised $48 million via SAFT offerings from VC firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, FBG, DFJ, BoxGroup, Blockchain Capital, Polychain Capital, MetaStable, Kinetic Ventures, and Foundation Capital. In addition, angel investors like Roger Ver, Naval Ravikant, Gavin Wood, Matthew Roszak, Dan Boneh, and Paul Bohm provided funding for the company.
Orchid was developed as a means of fueling decentralized virtual private networks (VPNs) in an attempt to address some of the flaws of traditional VPNs. The biggest and most visible such vulnerability is that when all internet traffic is routed through a single provider, that provider has the capacity to utilize and misuse the information. Even though some VPN services don't keep track of what their users do, they could still be ordered by national governments to hand over user data of one kind or another. Orchid's model of using a multi-hop configuration with layered encryption through a decentralized app hopes to get rid of this crucial weakness. The Orchid mobile app makes it easy to trade bandwidth for OXT crypto, and it also lets buyers enjoy private browsing. When internet traffic goes through an encrypted VPN tunnel, other people, including the user's internet provider, can't see what's going on.
The Orchid software utilizes a unique VPN protocol that operates on top of the mainstream web standard WebRTC. The Orchid protocol, like other systems such as OpenVPN and WireGuard, is created for high performance networking and allows users to pay in crypto for remote network resources to which they want to access. Bandwidth providers register their nodes in an Ethereum blockchain provider directory, which maintains metadata such as geolocation and any other services offered. Their registration information is also kept in a stake registry, which lets the Orchid app automatically find random servers in the decentralized network.
OXT is an ERC-20 standard token that runs on the Ethereum blockchain. As the protocol's native token and a utility token, it has two main uses.
First, users can buy bandwidth on a pay-as-you-go basis by buying OXT for their Ethereum wallet (like Metamask) and connecting it to the Orchid app. Users will only pay for the bandwidth they consume while utilizing the VPN service. This keeps prices low.
The second important usage of OXT is bandwidth providers for VPNs. Staking OXT lets anyone run an Orchid node, protect the network, and provide bandwidth. The more OXT is staked, the more users a provider will serve, and the more OXT revenue the provider will receive as compensation for offering the service.
DATE NEWS/EVENTS IMPACT 07/05/2022 TerraUSD and LUNA both collapsed, and as a result, a number of crypto platforms folded in the aftermath -48% Decrease 11/10/2021 The native digital asset of Orchid, OXT, is now listed on LATOKEN +60% Increase 18/12/2019 Orchid's OXT price falls following Coinbase Pro Trading Launch -25% Decrease
Orchid is a VPN app that runs on the Ethereum network and doesn't have a central server. This application is powered by OXT crypto. Users that desire a decentralized VPN pay node operators for bandwidth using OXT.
Orchid offers an innovative approach to a long-standing issue among privacy advocates: how to privatize network traffic without entrusting all of that data to a single entity.
Orchid Protocol