About Orchid (OXT)
Orchid is a decentralized, market-based system running on the Ethereum blockchain for anonymous communication and virtual private networking. This includes a bandwidth marketplace where node providers stake cryptocurrency to advertise their services and receive payment in Orchid's native cryptocurrency - $OXT. The current price of OXT is live-tracked on Binance.
The Orchid network lets users purchase bandwidth from a vast pool of service providers via a decentralized VPN. Orchid users can connect directly to bandwidth sellers via a decentralized provider directory and pay with cryptocurrency.
Orchid reportedly maintains user privacy on a public blockchain by using one of its features, the Orchid hop. Orchid hops are continuous nano payments to providers for the connection duration. The nano payment architecture locks user funds into a smart contract and rarely makes on-chain payments to providers. Orchid reports that only occasionally do OXT payments end up being posted on the public Ethereum blockchain. When this occurs, the Ethereum blockchain stores the user's Ethereum address, the provider's Ethereum Orchid-only address, and a timestamp.
To advertise their services to clients, Orchid providers stake OXT in an Ethereum smart contract, which is the directory. Orchid clients then choose providers at random, weighted by proportional stake, so that the likelihood of selecting a specific provider is equal to their proportion of the total stake.
Any OXT holder can stake on a provider of their choice's address, allowing for "delegated staking." Staking on someone else's behalf does not provide any automatic concessions to the OXT holder. Still, Orchid purportedly allows the staking mechanism to be combined with a revenue-sharing contract between the staker and the stakee.