About Orchid (OXT)
Orchid is a decentralized, peer-to-peer marketplace for virtual private network (VPN) providers.
Orchid was first described in a white paper published in November, 2019. Orchid aims to give users back control of their privacy by allowing users to browse the internet with a decentralized, trustless VPN. It was built as a solution to the privacy concerns around centralized VPN service providers and the performance issues of Tor (“The Onion Router”), developed by The Tor Project.
Improved Privacy
The Orchid VPN application can shield a user from a website seeing their real IP address and physical location. In addition, it can protect a user from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) peering into their traffic. It also renders IPS firewalls ineffective, which allows users to browse the entire Internet freely.
Token
OXT is the digital asset token used to pay for VPN services on the Orchid network. It is built on Ethereum in accordance with the ERC20 standard for tokens. OXT can be bought and sold for fiat currency or other digital currencies.
OXT can be purchased on a cryptocurrency exchange and stored in a crypto wallet and custodian like Gemini.
Supply
The supply of OXT tokens is fixed at 1 billion OXT.
The Orchid VPN Application
The Orchid VPN application allows a user (bandwidth user) to construct single or multi-hop onion router circuits. Nodes (bandwidth providers) are randomly selected based on the amount of OXT they have staked and then filtered by user-selected parameters such as price and location. Users can only purchase bandwidth with OXT tokens.
The Orchid Nanopayments System
Payments for bandwidth occur via the Orchid nanopayments system which, like the Orchid’s data transmission protocol, was designed to be scalable, trustless, censorship resistant, and to minimize information leakage. The nanopayments system is currently pseudonymous, however, future implementations could provide users with complete anonymity with respect to payments.
Staking
Bandwidth providers who wish to become an Orchid node and sell VPN services to users must stake OXT tokens in a time-locked smart contract (known as the “stake registry”). The amount of bandwidth a node may provide is proportional to the amount of OXT it stakes. The more OXT a node stakes, the more likely it is to be selected as a VPN provider. Providers are able to withdraw the OXT they have staked, subject to a time delay, which is initially defaulted to three months. Staking is designed to enhance network security (i.e., prevent Sybil attacks) and network quality (i.e., node selection).
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