Orchid, a decentralized VPN, has collaborated with Chainlink, a network of decentralized oracles, to create a new tool in the Orchid app that makes it easier for Orchid users to determine the price of VPN bandwidth. It acts as a “secret shopper” that samples bandwidth pricing from all the providers on Orchid, synthesizing the data into generalized pricing information for users.
The first Chainlink oracle, an OXT/USD price feed, is already up and running for months now. It is giving users the ability to price VPN bandwidth in U.S. dollars. The second Chainlink oracle allows users to estimate how much their bandwidth is likely to cost. Combining both the oracles will help to project how much service a given amount of USD is likely to purchase hence improving the UX on Orchid protocol.
Steven Waterhouse, the CEO and Co-founder of Orchid, explained:
“The basic idea is in decentralized services like Orchid, where we have a decentralized VPN, there’s no way of really knowing exactly [how much a provider might charge]. A provider might say they’re charging a certain amount, we don’t really know until you try it. So we wrote some code that in a decentralized fashion, shops for bandwidth on the network.”
He also said that in the future, this may lead to new features being added, such as the ability to track the up-time of bandwidth providers. Choosing Chainlink over other oracalized data providers was easy, as his relationship with the project’s co-founder Sergey Nazarov goes back to 2014.
Orchid offers users unprecedented digital privacy in a trustless context. Orchid app uses the bandwidth price to calibrate some of the payment rates to ensure the user gets a fair price for bandwidth.
PRODUCT UPDATE! Orchid is excited to share our second oracle developed with @Chainlink is now available in the Orchid app. The new secret shopper feature makes it easier than ever to estimate the price of #VPN services on our network. Try it now! https://t.co/WAuq0qkhJk — Orchid (@OrchidProtocol) September 21, 2020
Daniel Kochis, Head of Chainlink Business Development states:
“We’re excited to extend our collaboration with Orchid by helping them launch another Chainlink-powered decentralized oracle, one which empowers users with key off-chain data to enhance their user experience on the Orchid Network. Chainlink’s decentralized architecture delivers highly accurate and manipulation resistant price data for pricing bandwidth, allowing users to trust that they are receiving the fair market price for bandwidth.”
Orchid Co-Founder and CEO Dr. Steven Waterhouse was a founding partner of Pantera Capital, one of the first crypto investment firms in the world. Regarding the recent DeFi boom, he is convinced that people are “risking capital on unaudited contracts and anonymous teams and so on.” He concluded:
“I think that that’s a great team and it’s good to see what can be done with a solid team behind.”
Chainlink is the market leader in decentralized oracles, currently securing over $3 billion in USD value by providing reliable price feeds to many leading DeFi applications such as Aave, Bancor and Synthetix; numerous blockchains such as Ethereum, Polkadot, and Tezos; as well as large enterprises including Google, Oracle, and SWIFT.
Source: Cointelegraph | Image: Orchid Blog