Interview: Meet Octorand Team
Octorand is an Algorand-based NFT project whose unique selling point is that the holders can evolve its NFTs’ traits. Each Octorand Prime is configured with a series of letters that can be changed via a smart contract. Getting specific patterns — such as dictionary words, ‘fancy’ repeating letters, or words-within-words earn the Primes points, which allows them to rank on a league table.
You can visit Octorand’s built-in marketplace to buy or auction off your Primes, vote for your favorites, and collect badges for unique traits. Besides that, you can claim ALGO royalties for holding Primes and claim OCTO for transforming or trading in the Algorand ecosystem. With only one million OCTO, it’s only a matter of time before your creation becomes a permanent expression of the newly-budding Algorand ecosystem.
Can you introduce yourself, and how did you get interested in blockchain or NFTs?
Octorand is a project developed by a single developer Declan from Australia and now supported by a team of Mods and our fantastic community.
(Declan) I’ve been a software engineer for 10+ years now. Like most blockchain enthusiasts, I also started following blockchain developments in 2017. Starting with Bitcoin and Ethereum and then moving on to altcoin chains like Tron, EOS, and most recently Algorand.
What was your first NFT purchase, and why did you decide to buy that NFT?
I loved the Crypto Kitties project back in 2017 and bought and sold a few for a nice profit, but it led me to wonder whether you could make an NFT evolve rather than just be static art. In short, my curiosity led me to buy my first NFT in 2017, which was a totally different space than today’s NFT space.
Why did you choose to use Algorand for your NFT project?
(Declan) I came across Algorand in mid last year and was immediately amazed by its tech and positive community. I had no plans to create an NFT project on Algorand at that time. Actually, I was more interested in the tech behind Algorand. But being a developer for a long time, I eventually started experimenting with Algorand smart contracts.
Octorand is the result of what started as a fun learning exercise project maturing into a production-ready Dapp. I wanted to play with ASAs, which are first-class citizens in the Algorand blockchain. That’s why I think I went for an NFT project, instead of something like a DeFi project.
One of the major advantages of using Algorand is its low fees, plus the developer documentation was comprehensive, and with the PyTeal library, it was quite easy to get started.
Can you explain the Octorand project in short? OctoPrimes Gen1/2, Octo token, etc.?
(Declan) Ocotrand consists of Octo Primes, a collection of NFTs. The Gen1 collection has 1000 Octo Primes, and the Gen2 collection has 8000 Octo Primes. Each Prime is an NFT represented by an Algorand NFT.
Two main features separate Octorand from usual NFT projects.
- Octo Primes are mutable — In traditional NFT projects, the designer creates a bunch of images and sells them using an NFT marketplace. There is no way to alter these images after distributing them. Octo Primes, on the other hand, do not have such rigid traits. The owner of Octo Primes can change the Prime traits as they please. This leads to an ever-evolving ecosystem where users upgrade the traits of their Primes.
- The use of OCTO token — OCTO is the currency of the Octorand ecosystem. OCTO is a fungible token with an initial supply of 1 million. Each Prime holds some OCTO, and they emit this OCTO slowly. The owners of primes can collect this emitted OCTO. Users can use this OCTO for various functions inside the Octorand ecosystem, such as changing traits, voting, changing artwork of primes, etc. The OCTO paid for these functions is burned. This makes OCTO a deflationary currency that can be traded on DeFi platforms such as TinyMan.
What’s the purpose of the Tinyman OCTO-ALGO pool, providing a 4% rewards rate?
(Declan) We believe having high liquidity in the OCTO pool in Tinyman is healthy for the project. This enables users to trade OCTO tokens with low slippage. So we decided to introduce the liquidity provider rewards program. When doing that, the wider Algorand community suggested an excellent idea that made its implementation very easy. Now we send the rewards directly to the Tinyman pool, and by design, Tinyman distributes it automatically to LP providers.
Can you explain how you use smart contracts and why they are crucial for changing traits?
(Declan) One of the important features of Octorand is that almost all of the main data and features are stored and executed on the blockchain. Octorand smart contracts do not use local storage and exclusively use global storage. This means anyone can interact with them without opting in first.
The smart contracts store the traits, market listing settings, and the number of votes in their storage. Users can only change these values based on the smart contract’s logic. The smart contracts use the Algorand atomic transfers feature to ensure all conditions are met before carrying out function executions.
Why do you think your project became so successful so quickly? The project has reached 3rd place in total USD volume on NFTExplorer!
(Declan) I think the whole Octorand concept was a brand new idea, not only in the Algorand ecosystem but also in the whole NFT space across various blockchains. Smart NFTs that can be evolved and that go beyond traditional image-based tokens were a novel idea.
On top of that, NFTs that emit a fungible token that can be used for various actions was groundbreaking as well. The fact that the project launched as a completely working product with all the main features already working helped a lot. The project managed to attract users from various backgrounds, such as NFT lovers who liked the NFT aspect, token traders who liked trading the OCTO token, and game players who liked coming up with cool words and being involved in the wordplay side of it.
Why did you decide to create Gen2 OctoPrimes?
(Declan) The initial Gen1 collection only had 1000 Octo Primes. And they were sold out within 48 hours, and the price kept climbing. There were so many players who wanted to join in the action but were kept away by the high entry price and lack of Primes to own.
So introducing the Gen2 collection was a request that came through the community. Also, having more Primes is helpful for the gameplay features we are expecting to introduce down the line. There is a nice correlation between Gen1 and Gen2 Primes. The parent Gen1 receives a share of market fees every time one of its child Gen2 is traded in the marketplace. Parent Gen1 score affects the scoring of its child Gen2s. The average score of child Gen2s affect the scoring and ranking of parent Gen1.
What else can we expect from the Octorand project?
(Declan) Primes will finish emitting OCTO by mid-May this year. This is an important event in the Octorand space as the OCTO token will become entirely deflationary. Currently, the community is eagerly waiting so that we can begin the next phase of our adventure.
Future plans are being developed, but we can expect more features around gameplay coming up after May 2022.
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