Recap AMA with #Octopus Network
AMA will consist of 3 phases
Part 1: Introduction about yourself and the project
Part 2: Questions from Twitter
Part 3: Telegram direct questions
➡️Host : What would you say is the unique selling proposition by Octopus Network?
➡️Guest : Octopus Network has unlimited scalability, the lowest barrier to entry in terms of cost and time to launch, and we are a full value add ecosystem where we provide all the support to an appchain team — so that includes fund raising, token engineering, marketing, community management strategy.
_________________Phase 1 is over!___________________________
Part 2: Questions from Twitter
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➡️Twitter community : 1 : What is the strongest points of Octopus that helps to attract new investors on project? And what is the competitive advantage of Octopus over similar projects? Can you name 2–3 Octopus functions ahead of the opponent?
➡️Guest : Octopus Network is an infrastructure project that allows a multichain network to be deployed on top of Near Protocol. We are a strategic project of Near protocol and our fat hub design centres the Defi activity of our hub the fastest and easy to use Near Protocol L1.
The difference between Polkadot and Cosmos vs Octopus is that the former believe in hub minimalist design — where the relay or hub would host minimal functions i.e. relay messages or provide security. In Octopus, we believe that DeFi composability and performance of L1 such as Near Protocol cannot be rivalled, so we make Near Protocol our DeFi hub and we would focus on non defi application chains to be connected to Near Protocol and through our IBC pallet and EVM bridge pallet — connect to the rest of web 3.0
You can read more about this in our much acclaimed article on hackernoon: https://hackernoon.com/polkadot-vs-cosmos-vs-octopus-network-vs-near-protocol-fat-hubs-are-better-than-hub-minimalism
Because of our novel design, we can host unlimited amount of appchains and support other blockchain development frameworks such as Cosmos SDK. We are also a value add ecosystem where we provide developer training and also an accelerator programme offeirng USD250k in prizes every quarter — that is USD1mil every year. I believe that Octopus Network will be the largest multichain network in the world eventually.
Recently, we have started supporting EVM Substrate chain which means that Solidity based DApps can now choose to deploy their own blockchain rather than just existing as a DApp on 3rd party blockchains. This is especially appealing for Gamefi where there are a lot of low value tx. Alternatively, projects can choose to implement a zero fee regime.
➡️Twitter community : 2 : Too many projects promise magic but never release any working product or prove any revenue, Within a short time of release. Is a Octopus like this? If not can u tell us, What makes Octopus different from other projects?
➡️Guest : Octopus Network was under development for the past 2 years and on the World Octopus Day on 8th October 2021, we launched our mainnet. After that we have our first appchain launch which is Debio Network — a biomed information network that allows for anonymous genetic testing and remote consultation service.
The second appchain is a metasocial protocol called Myriad Social. They are one layer above traditional web 2.0 social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. So you can continue to have access to information of your network on web 2.0 platforms but enjoy the security and privacy provided by web 3.0 social media. Myriad will launch a metaverse called Myria version and they will be the social metaverse.
The third appchain that we expect to onboard is Unique One which is a multi chain NFT marketplace which will be transformed into a Art Community Metaverse. They will have exciting new things such as a metaverse job board, advertising network, common event areas offering event management. And best of all, you do not need to buy land — all you need to do is stake the UNET tokens in exchange for land! This will open metaverse web 3.0 economy access to the masses since not everyone has usd20k to buy metaverse land.
There are many other exciting projects that will be launched including DEIP — a creator economy platform and Attarius a Unity and Unreal Engine SDK platform where play-to-earn games can be launched. We are expecting a launch of one appchain every 3 weeks now — and this will be increased to 1 appchain every 2 weeks by mid 2022.
For any projects that wants to launch their own appchain — the easiest way to do it is to use Octopus Network because they can typically raised USD 2 to 3 mil (even in a bear market) and get launched within 8 weeks. This of course comes with full value added support. We are the only platform that offers this as far as I am aware.
➡️Twitter community : 3: Project progress and development is the first priority for any investors! Tell us about the latest great achievements of Octopus?
➡️Guest : The latest news is that our network now supports EVM Substrate chain — this means anyone can have a Polygon or Moombeam of their own instead of just staying as a DApp on a 3rd party chain. There are several advantages when projects decide to have their own chain in the Octopus Network.
For one, the application will be able to receive 100% of the gas fees on their network. There are some L1 such as Near which allows the smart contract owner to receive part of the fees — we think this is an awesome model. But most blockchains take 100% of the gas fees and the nett effect is to drain value from all the DApps into the base layer blockchain.
The second one, is governance. The governance that Substrate enables is one step beyond what is available on Ethereum as it can make decision to push runtime proposals and make changes to the blockchain protocol itself. More often than not, the voting on governance on Ethereum will need to be implemented by the dev team. There is centralisation in this process and it is not ideal. It will also have advanced features such as treasury management.
The third is connectivity. As you guys have heard recently, there has been a lot of hacks especially with bridges when the deposits on the bridge reaches usd100mil or more. So bridge construction is complex is nature and there are many different types of bridges you can deploy with trade offs in security and speed. With substrate, you can use our IBC pallet which will allow you to communicate with both Polkedot and Cosmos chains — and middle of this year we will have EVM chain bridge as well that allows you to connect to ETH, BSC, Polygon and other Eth L2.
All the above in addition to the ease of launching within 8 weeks and we have an appchain launch pipeline raising usd 2 to 3 mil and full ecosystem value add support. Also the Defi ecosystem on Near has been exploding and will continue to grow to what we believe is a top 10 blockchain in the world. Therefore, I believe Octopus Network and Near Protocl makes a compelling case for appchains.
➡️Twitter community : 4: Can you share your go to market strategy and sustainable development plan ?
➡️Guest : We are an infrastructure project so our target market is other appchains and also developers as we need sufficient builders. We also need to make a compelling case for other projects so we offer full support through our Accelerator Programme and Dev Training.
The dev training programme itself is an extension of marketing in the sense that the developer community needs to support the platform for the ecosystem to truly grow. For example, Polygon has a series of training and hackathons in India prior to them exploding. So we are following the same strategy starting dev training in 4 new countries a year and continuing the dev training with local partners in local market.
Also, being a Near Protocol strategic project is equally important as the Near ecosystem is tremendous and has a lot of talented people. So when a project considers Octopus, they are automatically included in the Near ecosystem whether it is access to funding from Near Protocol or support from Near Guilds.
As for development plans, there is a lot of tools and assets that needs to be built. Which means as the months pass, it will be easier for appchains to launch in our ecosystem. Our in house team will build the most important components but we have also partnered with other project teams to build assets for our ecosystem including Near Protocol.
➡️Twitter community : 5 :Currently 99% of new projects face two problems: financing and mass adoption. Does #Octopus encounter these problems?
➡️Guest : Octopus Network is fully funded with backers such as Near Protocol, DCG, Electric, D1 Ventures and many other VCs. The treasury has actually increased instead of decreasing as the amount of funds we raised were in a combination of USDC, USDT and NEAR tokens. So we believe we are 100% sustainable and in fact, we are in the process of rapid expansion. Look out for job ads from Octopus Network and also join our ambassador programme as a few ambassadors were upgraded to full time team members. We believe in passion and dedication so if you can demonstrate this — we are definitely interested in opening more opportunities to the community.
I believe most crypto projects run into trouble because of token utility and the failure of the tokens to capture value from the crypto system. There are a few important things for a strong token utility
The utility of OCT Token — the OCT token forms an essential part of the Octopus Network where the OCT token provides security in the Leased Proof of Stake system or LPOS. The security of the appchain can only be provided by OCT tokens and the level of security can be increased according to the number of OCT tokens that is staked by validators and delegators
OCT Token also represents the ability to be involved in governance vote so for example, voting for an appchain to be accepted as an Octopus appchain. Other governance functions will be available in the future
The tokenomics of OCT tokens follows a low inflation system. There will only be 100 mil OCT tokens and this figure will not increase. The tokens for inventors are all unlocked on Day 1 so that the sell pressure will dissipate in the beginning (this has happened) and it will let the token build value from ecosystem development and the projects built on top of it.
The token lock economics that we follow is also a tested and proven model that Polkadot, Kusama uses. With Debio appchain, we have already locked up 5% of circulating supply. And with each appchain, more tokens will be locked and we believe this provides a solid base valuation for OCT token.
As for mass adoption, we already have more than 5k token hodlders as per last count although i need to recheck the holders on eth and near chains. We are operating in a special segment of multi chain network and the number of participants who are aware should number in the tens of thousands possibly reaching 100k. So we have 2 goals — one is to increase awareness among this group and the second of course is to grow the ecosystem by onboarding as many appchains as possible as each application will draw their own community.
___________________Phase 2 is over______________________________
➡️ Part 3: Telegram direct questions
➡️Telegram community : 1 : Have you being audited ? Have not heard you talk about that security of funds is what every investor craves for and plans to escape incase of insecurity if funds,scams and rug pulls ? How strongly built are your security put in place?
➡️Guest : The Octopus Network is deployed as a set of smart contracts of Near Protocol. Each appchain will deploy validators and as a base service Octopus Network will provide 4 of the validator nodes on startup. Our smart contract code has been audited by Halborn which is a top audit firm. There are two parts to the audit and the first part was completed in Dec. The second part of the audit is ongoing with completion in April.
➡️Telegram community : 2 : You said that “Octopus Network is committed to unleash a new wave of innovation for Web3.0”.
Can you give a little insight into the new wave of innovation for Web3.0?
Besides the NEAR platform, do you intend to build another platform in the future?
➡️Guest : The sentence simply means that the current web 3.0 constraint will hamper progress into a web 3.0 world. We have Polkadot and Kusama with 100 parachain limit each and this means a total of 200 chains in the ecosystem. We do not think the web 3.0 revolution will happen with just 200 chains. But they are trading this off for composability which is a big part of their intended design. There are also the issue of collateral that is required and the incentives given up by the parachains is massive. This automatically excludes a large number of projects. So by having the ability to host unlimited appchains at a reasonbale cost — we belive we can ‘ unleaseh the web 3.0 wave’. Part of the reason we can host unlimited appchains is because we are built on Near Protocol. With every shard expansion, we add more capacity for more appchains. So the obvious answer is no. We will not deploy Octopus Network on any other chains as there is no need to. Near Protocol is by far the most secure, fastest, scalable and easy to use L1 right now — these features also removes the bottle necks of web 3.0 which is plagued with network outages, terrible UI, congestion and high cost. Near Protocol is all anyone needs.
➡️Telegram community : 3 :My question: How does the plan interoperate with Cosmos, Polkadot, Fantom, …. ecosystem in the next year? Can you tell when, where, how in detail?
➡️Guest : We received a grant from AStar/Plasm to biuld their bridge from polkadot to cosmos (Immutable X) last year. We originally received the grant from Cosmos to build the IBC pallet for Substrate about a year ago. We will be building EVM bridge pallet. The most basic function is ability to pass messages between chain and conduct value transfer. Later, there will be other capabilities where smart contracts can be triggered on another chain. Our team are experts in bridge building and it is not easy as you can see from the many bridge hacks recently. In the world of tomorrow, many chains will be connected to each other. But this is only one part of the equation, Octopus Network makes sure that we supply all the other necessary things that a project needs to be launched as an appchain and the tools for them to use. One of the recent projects we are executing is the explorer as we believe there can be a better explorer for appchain and Near Protocol. This is being discussed between us and Near and we will find the best way to solve this issue.
➡️Telegram community : 4 : Do you have a white paper? If yes, please share it as a second token project. Do you have a pre-sale plan? Where can we join now? And what is the need for this whitepaper?
➡️Guest : We have launched our token last year and our whitepaper is available on our website. The community is mainly on telegram and discord. If you would like to buy our tokens, you can search on coingecko and select an exchange you a comfortable with. Most of the liquidity is coming from ref.finance which is a popular DEX on Near Protocol. Once you have the OCT token, you have a lot of power and can use it to stake for appchain tokens. This can be done by spinning up validators and also through delegation. To unstake you need a period of 28 days, this is mainly for the team to plan if we see suddenly a lot of tokens are being unstaked and might affect appchain security.
➡️Telegram community : 5 :The crypto industry is a fast-paced industry, how flexible is your Project to change quickly and keep pace with technology trends? What is your long-term vision for the forecasting industry in which the your Project project operates?
➡️Guest :We have the advantage in a number of ways but the first reason why we can ‘keep up’ is because our founder is a visionary who can see ahead and see the bottlenecks of web3.0 as he has been researching this topic for many years. So our design which was done 2 years ago is still considered now and there are no other networks like us. We also invented the Leased PoS system that is used in appchain staking. Leased Security differs from the Shared security system in Polkadot where no matter what you pay, you receive the same security as everyone else. In the blockchain world, no two chains are similar and can have the same valuation or security needs. So our leased security model means appchains can choose how much security they wish to have. It is much more economical and leads to less wastage. And the ability to lease security is not available in the Cosmos ecosystem right now, each cosmos sdk chain will depend on their own security provided by their own tokens. In addition, Octopus can support not only substrate but cosmos sdk chains. This means the number of possible blockchains is the most in the world. And we can see that there is plenty of technical support and dev training given in other ecosystem — but there is little that can cover other aspects such as the business, fundraising or token engineering side. So we decided to provide this. And we can see from the hub minimalist design of the other platforms, that is not efficient. So we decided to make Near Protocol as our fat hub. This means Near is our New York City and the appchains are like industrial cities connected to it. This model makes sense as in the real world all financial activities tend to happen in a hub as value flow is more efficient. As you can see now, we are moving ahead to remove the bottlenecks so that the web 3.0 revolution can truly manifest. We see a world with a million blockchains and they all have the same needs at the most basic level and we are going to make it happen with Near Protocol.
➡️Host : Wow! Thank you, Aaron!
