If you missed the Orion Project AMA, check out a recap of the questions and responses!

Are you working with HoloREA for the double entry accounting you mention on your site?

Yes, Orion will integrate different payment gateways, including fiat, and can be used in any applications requiring exchange functionality. We use double-entry crypto accounting, the same principles used in the soon-coming HoloFuel. It hasn’t yet been done, but a collaboration with HoloREA looks very interesting.

How are you using the Holochain framework?

Several modules of the Orion Protocol are to be built with Holochain, including:

Brokers’ Settlement/Clearing

Trader Escrow

Staking Liquidity Pool

The first module is the Orion-Broker Decentralized Settlement Application, which is already built and being actively tested now. After it’s finished, it will be integrated with our broker web UI.

What impact do you hope to make with your platform ?

We want to move current crypto trading to the next level in terms of security and liquidity. Essentially, solving the following problems:

Traders need multiple exchange accounts in order to tap into the necessary liquidity to trade most assets.

Price discovery is difficult.

There is very little, if any, integration between centralized and decentralized exchanges.

Fees are high.

Security is problematic, as exchanges are frequently hacked.

Storing crypto is difficult and complicated.

Portfolio management is a task.

You need to hold your funds on centralized exchanges.

Orion Protocol Video

What are the biggest shifts you’ve had to make in your mindset while building an exchange in an agent-centric environment? How do you think models for liquidity/trading will differ from traditional blockchain environments?

Yes, building agent-centric applications has a slightly different approach, namely in supporting data integrity and the finalization of transactions, but after the building of the core models and tools, it becomes regular.

Orion crypto-credits act as a medium of exchange currency that combines centralized and decentralized liquidity with traders’ cold wallets and enables fast cross-chain trading without any trusted third parties.

Models for trading remains pretty much the same with the need to keep track of and validate counter-signed mutual transactions.

Will there be a direct Rust API in order for Holochain applications to have a faster connection?

Yes, we’re going to build Rust SDK for easier and faster use of public Orion API, for receiving price feed, and for order splitting and routing, as well as for building connectors for new exchanges.

What do Holdvest ICO participants need to do for Orion ICO? Will Holdvest ICO funds carry over or are we SOL?

There wasn’t a Holdvest ICO. It was a small, pre-sale round that was incorporated in the Orion seed round — so all participants will receive ORN tokens.

Hello, and thank you for your question. Indeed, Holdvest contributors were granted a special benefit that not many were allowed — entry into the Orion seed round. Although Orion is a much different project than when we first started as Holdvest, we are rewarding the Holdvest supporters by treating their contribution as the seed round for Orion.

Liquidity Aggregator Protocol

With which exchanges is Orion connected, and could you give some details about the process?

Currently, our demo Trading Terminal is connected to three centralized exchanges (Binance, Poloniex, Bittrex), and three DEXs (Waves DEX, Switcheo, IDEX). However, Orion uses connectors’ architecture, where to connect to a new exchange you just need to write a simple connector implementing the Orion Standard Exchange API.

We’ve already implemented a few new connectors and they will be integrated soon. Also, it is not necessary for such connectors to be developed by the Orion team — third-party developers are also encouraged to write them for other exchanges.

Why did your team choose to build dApps with Holochain? Will Orion be hosted on Holo as well?

Holochain makes decentralized computing possible in a very efficient way. Also, Holochain enables scalable, double-entry crypto-accounting to build new generations of asset-backed and value-stable cryptocurrencies. This is a perfect fit for our accounting and settlement modules, namely the Orion-Broker settlement application. And yes, Orion distributed applications (hApps) will be hosted on Holo.

What are the benefits when a user holds an ORN token? What number of ORN will be in circulation?

There are many benefits of using/holding ORN tokens. In addition to investment purposes:

payment of trading fee with discount

access to premium features like arbitrage opportunities, advanced order types, etc.

joining the staked-shared liquidity pool (as liquidity providers must stake a minimum amount of ORN tokens to join the pool and will be selected based on PoS algorithm) to receive guaranteed revenue for executing orders on traders’ behalf

Use of other advanced Orion products like Orion Enterprise Trade, Liquidity Boost Plugin, DEX Launch Kit, trading signals from different providers, etc.

Orion Ecosystem

What has been the most challenging part of developing the Orion Protocol? What’s the biggest challenge you currently face in order to get this project finalized?

Thanks for the interesting question. Actually, in Orion, we identified a number of different interesting and useful products that can be built on our protocol. I wish we could have built them all at once, but of course, it depended on the available resources we could allocate to each product. So we need to choose and focus on the most needed element right now that can start generating revenue ASAP. We’re focused on Trading Terminal — which is also best for showing all the advantages and benefits of trading on Orion. Also, we aim at B2B sectors with our Liquidity Boost Plugin, allowing third-party exchanges to utilize routing and liquidity from Orion.

I hope you can create your platform ASAP. How will the Orion Protocol add value to Holochain? As I understand, you will not use HoloFuel as a base currency — is that correct?

We’re going to release the pilot version of our Trading Terminal by the end of this year. Early next year, we’ll release public MainNet.

Is Orion working with US regulators in an effort to remain SEC compliant, or mostly adding services with consideration to compliance at a later time?

Hi there! We have our council working with US lawyers to assure the compliance of Orion. Safety first!

Is Orion decentralized?

First of all, Orion is fully non-custodial, and can be accessed by anyone, anywhere. That means to start trading you don’t need to transfer any of your funds to some trusted third party.

Secondly, there can be multiple instances of all Orion modules. Though in the beginning they will be run by Orion, we’ll encourage the community to run their own version. For example, our matching engine (matcher) has its own relayer network through which it can share orders from different traders and fill them, forming decentralized, aggregated order books.

Therefore, while there are some centralized components (but not limited), in essence, the Orion Protocol is decentralized.

*Note: Please note that some minor editing has occurred.

Our next Forum AMA w/Sacred Capital is Thursday, September 12th @ 10AM EST. Sign up and ask your questions here.