Octopus DAO December 2022

Reports from Octopus Core Team and Open Discussion Q&A

Octopus DAO Community Call #5 — December Reports

On December 8th, the Octopus DAO held its fifth Community Call. The Octopus Core Team wants to thank all Octopus validators and delegators who showed up and participated.

To honor your participation, the Octopus DAO has launched a POAP NFT Collection which will be issued to all fully attending DAO members effective November 8th (4th Community Call). The NFTs are transferred to your NEAR wallet based upon a random screenshot taken during the call.

These NFTs represent the degree of members’ commitment and contribution to the community over time. Collecting Proof of Attendance NFTs will gradually grant members particular rights and interests in the process of community development.

Community Call #5

The Community Call is divided into two parts:

1. Core Team Updates
2. Open Discussion Q&A — We welcome fact-based discussions (and even challenges) from the Octopus community in both English and Chinese.

Below are reports from the Octopus Network Core Team, followed by Open Discussion Q&A.

Core Team Updates

Julian Sun, Co-founder, Chief Software Architect

We’ve recently integrated Google Cloud Platform into our Validator Node Automatic Deployment service and we’re currently testing the integration with a few whitelisted users to deploy appchain nodes to GCP. Once we have received certification, GCP node deployment will be available to everyone.

The Barnacle EVM v0.9.30 has been upgraded and pre-released on the testnet in preparation for production soon.

We’ve implemented a new project to develop the IBC protocol on NEAR and have completed most of the core code this last month. When this feature is completed and goes live, we will be able to use the IBC protocol to connect NEAR with any IBC-enabled chains.

We have created the Octopus Network DAO contract on AstroDAO. Once a validator’s total stake falls within the top 21 validators with the most staked OCT, that validator will automatically become an Octopus DAO Council Member.

In addition, we’ve upgraded the onboarding voting process for appchains. The Appchain Candidate Voting Queue has now been transferred to the governance of the Octopus DAO. Going forward, once an appchain has passed an audit, its proposal to join Octopus will now be voted on by all Octopus DAO Council Members. If the proposal is approved, the appchain will move on to the Booting Phase. We are also working on various other governance proposals, for example, adjusting the minimum stake requirement of the new validator, etc.

Mike Tang, Co-founder, Head of Technical Support

I will report on the recent work done by the Octopus Network Technical Support Team. For clarity, I will report our work in three categories — Technical Support, Substrate Training, and Accelerator Program.

1) Technical Support

1. Updated DOCS to prepare for the new validator node Google Cloud Platform integration.
2. Conducted many NFT bridge tests — This feature is available on testnet and open for appchains.
3. Supported the UniqueOne team to rewrite their runtime and integrate with Octopus testnet. UniqueOne testnet now has the ability to transfer NFTs.
4. Consistently supported the Gable, Plats, and Yogain teams to help them move forward on their products. They have now developed their mobile Apps.

2) Substrate Training

The fourth Vietnam Substrate Training course is ongoing. Before this course, our local course partners successfully held a prerequisite Rust course for students.

3) Octopus Accelerator

• We’re in the middle of the Octopus Winter Accelerator 2022
• 61 teams were recruited into this batch
• We are busy filtering a top 10 list for the final Showcase Day and have done 20 interviews with these teams.
• The Showcase Day event will be held on December 14th.

Vivi Lin, Head of Media

The Media team serves as the global media and PR powerhouse for the Octopus Ecosystem. We work very closely with the Octopus communities, appchains, the Near ecosystem, and beyond.

Unique One Network

For UniqueOne Network’s upcoming IDO- we had published an in-depth video on UniqueOne earlier last month, and have since promoted it throughout the Octopus ecosystem through social media and communities, including Chinese media coverage.

Accelerator Program

To further increase the exposure and influence of Octopus Accelerator, we published two videos about Octopus Accelerator. One is about the Octopus Accelerator Fall batch star prize winners where we gave a comprehensive introduction to the five winning star projects — Abyss World, DanceFit, Gable Appchain, Octan Network, Waldo DAO).

The second video is an evergreen video promoting the Octopus Accelerator. We updated the previous promotion video and added some quotes from mentors and also some more testimonials from the accelerator graduates.

In addition, To help with recruiting for the Octopus Accelerator Winter batch, we also hosted an AMA with Octopus Accelerator Program Manager Woori on November 4th. Woori gave a thorough introduction to the Octopus Network and Octopus Accelerator Program and answered some frequently asked questions from the community.

Octopus Network Must Read Series

Octopus Network Must Read Series is a column produced by our core member MiX, aiming to provide a deeper understanding of Octopus through a series of short and concise articles. We released two articles last month. One is an article explaining our pioneering shared security design “LPOS” in both Chinese and English. We are also making a video about LPOS and will be published this month. The other article is based upon Louis’s speech content about community governance in which he explained the four formal ways to participate in Octopus Network governance — also published in Chinese and English.

Octopus Community Call rewarding NFT

For those that attend our community calls, we’ve created a POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) NFT collection. Everyone who participates in the entire session today will receive an OCT-CC#5 NFT. The OCT-CC#4 NFTs were already issued to those who attended our previous call. As our community grows, the POAP NFT will become more useful than just a Proof of Attendance.

Louis interview FT China

I wrote a column for FT China on Web3 entrepreneurship in which I interviewed our founder Louis Liu and introduced Octopus Network. The article has received good feedback from the entrepreneur community, and we’ve also published the interview with Louis separately in which we discussed the topic in more detail. An English version will be published soon.

I was invited to be the host of the 2022 Global Metaverse Startups Conference in the Shanghai session as a partner of Octopus Network, and had deep conversations with some projects on the entrepreneurial opportunities in the Metaverse era.

I was also interviewed by a British media called Southbank Investment Research to discuss Web3, crypto investment, CBDC, etc. We have translated it into a Chinese version so that the Chinese community members can also take a look.

Aaron Ting, Head of Community

(In absentia, Vivi Lin reporting)

The Marketing and BD teams have been incredibly busy throughout the world. You can read more details about their November events in the November Updates. Here are some key points from November.

• Marketing has been running an ongoing popular World Cup Predict & Win Competition on Twitter to capture the global crypto audience enjoying the welcome distraction of the games.
• Aaron Ting, Community Lead, traveled to Turkey to attend Istanbul Blockchain Week and was interviewed by CryptOps about the opportunities Octopus Network affords anyone building in the Web3 space during dark markets.
• Sheldon Dearr, Tech Lead, has been busy as a highly demanded speaker at many diverse Web3 functions in Miami. He most recently presented on a panel at DCENTRAL Miami and NEARMiami during the infamous Miami Art Week. Recaps will be made available on the Octopus Network and DCENTRAL channels as they are updated.
• Luana Cantuarias, LATAM Community Lead, has been actively networking with major educators and influencers in Peru and a variety of other countries in Latin America with welcoming reception. We see great opportunities for all Octopus Network products in these areas. She also participated in DCENTRAL Miami and provided support for NEAR Miami Art Week, amongst other events, during Art Basel Miami.
• Suzanne Leigh, Editor, traveled to Miami for Miami Art Week to both support her colleagues, meet with DeBio CEO and Myriad appchain founder, but also to take the pulse of the current narrative coming from VCs, founders, builders, and artists “post-FTX fiasco” during one of the biggest Web3 events in the world. The Octopus Network is aware of the changing narrative in blockchain, and aims to stay ahead of the curve.

Louis Liu, Founder

As you can see, the Octopus Core Team keeps building and continuing to deliver the message of our global operation to the crypto community so we have a lot of things going on here. You may value some more than others, but I will point out some key areas in our progress this month.

IBC NEAR Protocol

The first is that I am quite excited about our work with IBC. As you may know, IBC is the most widely accepted, generic, cross-chain messaging/bridging protocol that was initiated by Cosmos. I think we share a lot of the same vision with Cosmos as they are the inventors of a marketing network for application-specific blockchains. We also see a lot of progress in the Cosmos Community.

So, I am very happy to start the work of building NEAR IBC which could connect NEAR and Octopus Network into a unified internet of blockchains which would allow Octopus Network to potentially expand our market to offer services to Cosmos SDK based appchains which would essentially double our addressable market.

Also we are working with some long term friends and partners such as Cosmos China, IBC Legal, WanXiang Blockchain Labs, HashKey Capital, among others, to provide the first Cosmos SDK Developer Training in Chinese. We hope to facilitate the birth of a real and meaningful Chinese Cosmos Developer community. By being the founding participants and contributors in this community, we will benefit from the prosperity of this community.

Governance

The other thing I would like to mention is our progress on governance. We have enabled appchain voting on our DAO, and we are also working on other less critical things that can be voted on by the DAO. Hopefully, the first on-chain governance proposal will be submitted for vote by the end of this month or early next month, at which point all the validators that have been elected into the council will actively join the process. I think it’s a great experience — it’s the first time that we will leverage the on-chain governance power for the octopus community and I can’t wait to join the discussion and be a part of the community, be one representative of the community — not just as a founder or core team member — to express my opinion and make decisions together with other representatives.

Marketing Focus

As Aaron isn’t present, I will report for him. The Marketing Team is essentially transforming into a Business Development Team. So, the team will focus more on one-to-one partnerships, especially focused on institutional investors and incubators since we think it’s the most cost effective way to pitch to newly born web3 applications.

I think there is nothing to hide. We are facing the same extremely bad market conditions as everyone else. But newly born web3 applications are having more difficulty than us or anyone else. Their situation borders death. Most of them cannot last if they cannot get new funds. It’s the first thing they ask of us, “Can you invest in us? Can you give us grants?”

Unfortunately our policy is that we do not invest directly into appchain projects. Our grants are quite exclusive within the Accelerator Program only — We try to help all potential Web3 applications which have the potential to become viable appchain projects. This is why we are trying to build closer relationships with incubators that are still active even in this market environment.

Open Discussion Q&A

Please note: The Octopus Network Forum is now open at forum.oct.network. You are welcome to register, express your views, and discuss community improvement suggestions.

Question 1:

I heard that Fusotao might have a little bit of internal issues, so if Fusotao has some problems, will it have an impact on Octopus?

Vivi (translating for Louis):

The Fusotao team, like many other web3 projects, is in its early stage. Thus, on-chain governance is not mature. They still rely on the core team to build and design the protocol, including resolving any issues. So, if they have internal disputes for whatever reason, we, as an infrastructure project, can only reach out to them and engage in discussions to attempt to remind them of their responsibility to respect the Fusotao Community. In the Octopus Community, a lot of validators and delegators are Fusotao stakeholders. Appchains need to pay attention to the consequences of not respecting their community.

But the challenge is, as we sort of discovered with the DEIP situation, even though the Octopus Core Team consistently reached out to them — (as Sheldon stated in Community Call #4 Aaron, Sheldon, Zan, and Luana all made efforts to communicate with them) — DEIP rejected a lot of this help that we offered.

But this is Web3. A lot of the relationships are socially bound, not legally bound. There is no legal contract between Octopus Network and an appchain. There is a social contract, a soft commitment. We are the infrastructure — We are not legal partners. So, it’s pretty difficult for us to solve internal disputes within a sovereign appchain in a traditional way. We reach out to the team to discuss potential solutions to their problems which respect their community and keep the community’s interests in mind.

Question 2:

I am new here, but I read a lot of articles from Louis. I think he has very good ideas. I suggest he be more active on Twitter or social media. We need a leader here in crypto. I know the team does a lot, but we need more leadership from Louis. I suggest he becomes more active on Twitter. Twitter is not very interesting. Maybe you can translate ideas from Louis and share more articles from Louis.

Vivi:

Louis writes many articles, and there are a lot of ways that we share his insight with the community. Recently, we interviewed Louis for Financial Times China, which we are now publishing in English. Our writers MiX in Chinese and Zan, our Editor, also work very hard to publish Louis’ articles in both Chinese and adaptations in English across third party publications and on our blog.

Louis:

It’s great advice. Actually, I have realized it’s my weak point that I am not quite active on social media. Clearly, a founder with great vision and great execution power and who can deliver his narrative in his own way to the community is a more valuable asset for the crypto community. Believe me, I’m trying. I think I can make some improvements on that part. Thank you for the suggestion.

Community Call #6 — January 8, 2022

Octopus Network will transfer decision-making power to the Octopus DAO in a planned and structured manner through on-chain governance.

Validators and delegators who have not joined the Community Call private channel, please join as soon as possible so that you do not miss the opportunity to jointly build and govern the Octopus DAO.

Do not miss the next Community Call, January 8th–21:00 GMT +8

To join:

1. Open the link: https://discord.gg/BEQrN4Ya7C
2. Enter the Discord channel and follow the prompts to verify your identity with your NEAR wallet.

Follow Octopus Network!

• Website: https://oct.network/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/oct_network
• Accelerator Program: https://accelerator.oct.network/
• Medium: https://medium.com/oct-network
• Discord: https://discord.gg/6GTJBkZA9Q
• Telegram: https://t.me/octopusnetwork
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCkMYDmXdgjCBTBggSEAy0ZQ
• Github: https://github.com/octopus-network
• Docs: https://docs.oct.network/