Octopus Network

Services

An Octopus appchain gets advantages from both being an autonomous blockchain and a member of a well connected network with rich services and facilities to utilize.

Security

Octopus Relay provides unprecedented flexible and cost effective leased security, where appchains could decide how much security they want and how much they are willing to pay for it.

Interoperability

Best out-of-box interoperability, including trustless interaction with NEARother appchains, heterogeneous blockchains such as Ethereum, and any IBC enabled blockchains.

Infrastructures

Infrastructures as common goods including testnet, RPC gateway, indexer, block explorer, wallet integration, archive service etc.

Community

Octopus, as a community, will support appchains from many aspects, such as fundraising, recruiting, know-how sharing, token economics design, token listing etc.

Technology

The core technology of Octopus Network is trust minimal blockchain interoperability. Based on that, Octopus Relay, which itself is a set of smart contracts running on NEAR blockchain, provides leased security to appchains, and makes appchains interoperable with NEAR and other appchains. Furthermore, appchain can interoperate with blockchains outside the Octopus Network, either via bridges on NEAR, such as with Ethereum via Rainbow bridge, or they could utilize the out-of-the-box IBC pallet to connect with any IBC enabled blockchains directly.

Anyone can provide security to an appchain by staking $OCT tokens in Octopus Relay. After that, the validator should set up and run a validator node for this appchain, and the node will sync the validator set from Octopus Relay. Then all validator nodes for one appchain will form a quorum to reach consensus on block production, and be rewarded by appchain native token issuing. If one or more validators act maliciously in the consensus process, any honest node could submit a fraud proof to Octopus Relay to challenge them. Once the fraud proof is confirmed, the staked $OCT belonging to the malicious actors will be slashed. By this mechanism, an appchain’s security is economically ensured by $OCT staking in Octopus Relay.

FAQs

What is Octopus Network?

Octopus is a sidechain network to host Web3.0 application specific blockchains, aka appchains, around NEAR protocol. By providing cost effective leased security, out-of-box interoperability, complete infrastructure and ready to be engaged community, Octopus Network will decrease the capital expenditure to bootstrap an appchain by 100X.
What is an appchain?

Decentralized application or Dapp, is web application which at least part of its backend resident on a public blockchain. Now Dapp’s backend could be implemented in two ways, a set of smart contracts hosted by a platform blockchain or an dedicated blockchain. The latter is called application specific blockchain, or appchain for short.
What is Substrate?

Substrate is the most powerful open source blockchain framework ever present on the planet. All kinds of blockchains could be built on Substrate, such as public chains, consortium chains, Polkadot parachains and Octopus appchains.
Why do we need Octopus?

There is still no cryptonetwork that is borned to serve appchains. Although Polkadot seems the natural choice of Substrate based blockchains to join, its architecture and economy actually do not accommodate appchains. A Polkadot parachain must afford the security cost of one shard, aka slot, of the network, meaning tens of millions of dollars per year. While a generic platform parachain could host thousands of applications to share the security cost, it does not make sense for an application specific blockchain to bear the cost on itself. For a Cosmos zone, its developers have to bootstrap PoS/Tendermint security by setting up a valuable native token and an active validator community from ground. Polygon and Skale may seem like an option, but in fact they are still smart contract based, not designed to host appchains.

So where should appchains go? Do they have to stay isolated and bootstrap security and work out interoperability on their own? Here come octopus to rescue! Octopus Network is designed to serve appchains by providing flexible and affordable leased security, powerful out-of-box interoperability and many useful infrastructures. More importantly, Octopus community consists of Web3.0 venture capitalists and enthusiasts who are eager to find, fund, support, prompt appchains.
What is NEAR? And why Octopus needs a motherchain?

NEAR is a public multi-shard blockchain with great performance and usability. Octopus choose to implement its relay as smart contracts rather than a blockchain for two reasons: 1. To make sure Octopus Relay could go live with 100% safety and reliability. 2. To minimize security cost of the relay, then it does not need to pass through the cost to appchains by any means. So Octopus Relay needs a public blockchain to run on, aka motherchain.
How many appchains can Octopus host?

It was estimated that one Octopus Relay could host several hundreds appchains without difficulties. And there could be multiple relays on multiple shards of NEAR blockchain. So Octopus appchains are not limited in number.
How do I turn my Substrate project into an Octopus appchain?

Easy! What you need to do is import a pallet or two which encapsulate services provided by Octopus Network and use them as you wish.
What is the $OCT token?

$OCT is a fungible, non-inflationary utility token, that is required for staking on different appchains to ensure their security economically. $OCT is an NEP-21 (NEAR Enhancement Proposals-21 which is equivalent to ERC-20 standard) token on NEAR protocol.
What is the token distribution plan?

The fixed supply of $OCT is 100 million, will be minted at mainnet launch once for all. The plan is to sell 35% token to institutional investors via two round private fundraising. 5% $OCT belongs to NEAR foundation who is Octopus’ strategic partner and investor. 30% belongs to angel investors and the team. 30% is reserved by Octopus Foundation for promoting the ecosystem.
How can I buy $OCT tokens?

Please follow @oct_network on twitter to get updated.
When is the mainnet launch?

Octopus mainnet launch is scheduled in Q3 2021.
Is there a testnet available?

Sure! Please refer to the document or join us on Discord for further information. There is a dedicated channel for testnet.
How can I play a part in the community?

Octopus community is consist of three roles: Web3.0 application developers, Web3.0 venture capitalists and the last but not the least, Web3.0 enthusiast who see Octopus Network is an important driving force for the next generation of Internet and willing to devote their time and energy to spread the idea. Feel free to choice your roles and dive in.
Who can I contact for the press?

Send email to hi@oct.network or join us on Discord.