NEAR protocol’s strategic project may not survive the crypto winter: Octopus Network announced significant staff layoffs

The multichain network for application-specific blockchains, Octopus Network, announced major staff reductions. The head of the company declared that up to 40% of the staff (12 out of 30) will be cut, while the rest of the team will receive a 20% pay cut and token incentives will be suspended.

What’s happened?

Founder of Octopus Network, Louis Liu, said he has survived the previous two crypto winters, but the latest one is “very different.” Liu expects the current crypto winter “will last at least another year, and possibly much longer.” And “most Web3 startups will not survive.” In order for the project to stay alive, the number of developers was reduced. Also, the amount of operations decreased.

“The most important thing is to ensure that Octopus Network will survive the crypto winter and occupy an important position in the upcoming Internet of Blockchains. Therefore, we will condense operations and focus on building in the next year — NEAR and IBCThe Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol allows different blockchain networks to communicate. are the two cornerstones of the new strategy,” Liu stated.

What is Octopus Network?

This is a strategic project of the NEAR protocol (a blockchain supporting smart contractsSimply programs stored on a blockchain that run when predetermined conditions are met., a public Proof-of-Stake blockchain that is designed to work as a community-driven cloud computing platform). The Octopus Network was launched in October 2021. 

It reduces the cost of running an appchainA decentralized application or dApp is a web application with at least part of its server part residing on a blockchain. The server part of a dApp can be implemented via smart contracts and can be hosted on a blockchain platform, or a decentralized application can run on its own dedicated blockchain. When a dApp has its own blockchain, it is called an app-specific blockchain or appchain for short. from several million dollars to less than one hundred thousand dollars. Appchains allow developers to customize their applications.

Application chains (appchains) are inherently expensive to run and require a large investment just to optimize their security, which prevents them from becoming more widespread, despite their tremendous benefits. Octopus Network eliminates these problems by using the NEAR Protocol segmentation technology, which can handle thousands of appchains with infinite scalability. 

The aces of the network are Octopus Relay and the OCT token. Octopus Relay is a set of NEAR-based smart contracts, also called a master chain. The demand-side application chains of the network pay “rent” with their native tokens to rent security from OCT token holders. 

OCT, the native utility token of the Octopus Network, needed to get rewards via staking as validators or delegators. Also, OCT holders gain control of the Octopus Network by forming a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) with a maximum of 100 members.  

To hold OCT or become a validator or delegator in the Octopus Network, users need to have a NEAR Wallet.

Heavy losses

Following the announcement of the layoffs, the Octopus Network (OCT) token statistics appeared on CoinGecko, the world’s largest independent aggregator of cryptocurrency data. According to the platform’s data, as of December 28, the coin is 767th in market capitalization with $11,542,841. There are 26,134 people following it on the aggregator.

All available coins are in circulation, that’s 100,000,000. The value of the OCT token fluctuates around $0.181, although it was still around $0.21 on December 5. The record price of the token was in early 2022 — $7.02. That is, OCT lost 97.4% of its value over the year.

According to Etherscan, there are 2,193 OCT owners, the largest of which is Near: Rainbow BridgeIt allows developers to utilize Ethereum assets and smart contracts on NEAR — a fast, scalable, and low-cost environment.. The account has 24,628,744 tokens or 24.62% of the total amount.

Will Octopus Network survive?

This year, several big crypto companies were eliminated or are close to doing so. Although it started with a series of layoffs. BlockFi bank and its eight subsidiaries, and cryptocurrency lender Celsius, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcyThis chapter of the Bankruptcy Code usually involves a reorganization in order to keep your business intact and pay your creditors over time.. Also, crypto lender Genesis is seeking ways to avoid bankruptcy, Bloomberg reported.