Core Team Refactoring for Octopus 2.0
The Octopus Network core team will be refactoring as we adopt a refined project strategy to adapt to market conditions. The current winter is the third winter I’ve experienced, the first two being 2014–2015 and 2018–2019 — and I see that this winter is very different from the others.
With the involvement of traditional financial institutions and the deepening of the Web3 theme, crypto has become a part of the global capital markets, especially the Internet tech sector, and it’s the part with the highest risk and volatility. Correspondingly, the macrocycle will replace the Bitcoin halving cycle as the dominant force of the crypto asset market.
Many people are better qualified to make macroeconomic forecasts than I am. But most people will agree: the capital market will move back to risk-taking at slow paces, which means that the crypto winter will last at least another year, perhaps much longer. Most Web3 startups will not survive. I wouldn’t recommend that ordinary people launch a Web3 startup in the coming year unless they receive support from large institutional investors.
Octopus Network was designed to support Web3 applications by providing a whole set of appchain infrastructure on-demand. Appchains have high performance, low usage costs, and incredible customizability, but the operational cost is higher than a smart contract on a shared L1 blockchain.
Web3 applications have to distribute their native tokens (and governance tokens, in most cases) to incentivize PoS validators — all coming from Octopus Network in our case. Because it takes a big chunk of resources to support an appchain in terms of IT infrastructure and community mindshare, the Octopus community can’t afford to onboard a batch of appchains only to lose most of them in one year. This is why I decided to revise the Octopus strategy.
The most important thing is to ensure that Octopus Network will survive the crypto winter and occupy an important position in the upcoming Internet of Blockchains. Therefore, we will condense operations and focus on building in the next year — NEAR and IBC are the two cornerstones of the new strategy.
The Octopus team has been working on IBC for over two years, and we’re sitting on the edge of expanding IBC to non-Cosmos-SDK-based blockchains. We’ve always believed that NEAR Protocol is the best L1 blockchain to host Web3 applications due to its unparalleled usability and scalability. Octopus 2.0 will facilitate NEAR’s position as an inherent part of the blockchain Internet by widely connecting various appchains (Substrate or Cosmos SDK based) and all IBC-enabled blockchains. I will elaborate on this initiative in Q1 2023.
Because our operational structure will change with the new strategy, there will be some modifications to core team roles during the transition. I highly appreciate the competence and dedication of all core team members. Even though we have to say goodbye to some of them, I think they deserve a leave with respect and proper compensation. So, we’re moving forward with the Voluntary Separation Program. To date, roughly 40% of the members (12 of 30) will leave the core team through the program. The remaining team members will accept a 20% salary cut, and the team token incentive will be suspended indefinitely.
If you have questions about Octopus 2.0 and the core team refactoring, you are welcome to join the next community call on January 8th. I will answer all the questions from the community. In addition, all who care about Octopus Network are always welcome to ask questions, express opinions, and make suggestions on the forum.
Louis Liu
Founder of Octopus Network
