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 can 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 NEAR, other 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, appchains can interoperate with blockchains outside the Octopus Network, either via bridges on NEAR, such as with Ethereum via Rainbow bridge, or they can 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 the Octopus Relay. After that, the validator should set up and run a validator node for the appchain, and the node will sync the validator set from the Octopus Relay. Then all validator nodes for one appchain will form a quorum to reach consensus on block production and be rewarded with the appchain native token. If one or more validators act maliciously in the consensus process, any honest node can submit a fraud proof to the 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 the 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, the Octopus Network will decrease the capital expenditure to bootstrap an appchain by 100X.
What is an appchain?

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

Substrate is the most powerful open source blockchain framework presently on the planet. All kinds of blockchains can 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 in existence 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 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 options, but in fact they are still smart contract based and therefore 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 comes Octopus to rescue! The 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, the Octopus community consists of Web3.0 venture capitalists and enthusiasts who are eager to find, fund, support, and prompt appchains.
What is NEAR? And why does Octopus need a mainchain?

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

It was estimated that one Octopus Relay could host several hundreds of appchains without difficulty. And there could be multiple relays on multiple shards of the 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 encapsulates the services provided by the 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 NEP141 (NEAR Enhancement Proposals-141 which is equivalent to ERC-20 standard) token on NEAR protocol.
What is the token distribution plan?

The totail supply of $OCT is fixed at 100 million, which will be minted before the mainnet launch at once. The plan is to sell 25% - 30% of the tokens to institutional investors via two rounds of private fundraising, and sell 2.5% - 5% to the public via an IDO. Please follow the offical twitter and join Ocotpus telegram group to keep up to date, and refer to the whitepaper for detailed token distribution plan.
How can I buy $OCT tokens?

Please follow @oct_network on twitter for updates.
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?

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

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