What is Oasis Network?

Oasis Network is a privacy-focused smart contract network for open finance, created using the Cosmos software development kit (SDK). The initiative favours apps and use cases that improve data privacy and user confidentiality. It tries to accomplish this objective by isolating its consensus layer from its contract execution layer while offering a built-in interface linking the two for privacy-preserving computation.

The ROSE native token from Oasis Network is a capped supply token. It is used for staking and delegating on the Oasis consensus layer and for smart contract operations that require fees in ParaTimes.

A brief history of Oasis Network

Oasis Labs, the key developer of the Oasis Network, was formed in 2018 by a University of California at Berkeley professor, Dawn Song. Its development team secured US$45 million from a16z crypto and Polychain Capital, among others, to finance early protocol development. Since Oasis employs the Cosmos SDK, it ultimately can link to the larger ecosystem of Cosmos-enabled chains (called zones) once the IBC (Inter Blockchain Communication) Protocol debuts.

In July 2018, when Oasis Labs initially raised US$45 million in a Series A round, they sold about 2.3 billion ROSE tokens or 23% of the network's maximum supply. The Oasis Network distributed roughly 8.05 billion ROSE tokens to current stakeholders, founders, and community reserves at launch. The circulating supply was set at 1.5 billion tokens, and the total supply cap was fixed at 10 billion tokens.

In November 2020, Oasis launched its mainnet, enabled transfers of the ROSE token, and kicked off the network staking reward schedule for the tokens. The Oasis Network is targeted to reward stakers with rewards of between 2.0% and 20.0%, depending on the length of time staked to provide staking services on the network. The network launched with a consensus committee of 80 validators, which grew to 120 validators as of April 2022.

How Oasis Network works

The Oasis Network is a Layer-1 blockchain protocol that employs a PoS consensus system based on Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT). Oasis distinguished itself by separating its consensus layer from its contract execution layer. These independent layers allow Oasis to support several configurable runtimes (which it calls ParaTimes). This concept is akin to how Avalanche includes multiple subnets or how Polkadot protects and links independent parachains.

The consensus layer is a scalable, high-throughput, secure PoS consensus run by a decentralised network of validator nodes. This consensus layer functions as a hub that protects the network and sets agreements on transaction legitimacy.

The execution layer, called the ParaTime layer, comprises several parallel runtimes called ParaTimes for specific processing requirements that individually plug into the consensus layer. ParaTimes represent a duplicated compute environment with a shared state. The network's novel ParaTime design enables them to scale without sidechains.

The Oasis Network powers private, scalable decentralised finance (DeFi), spreading it beyond traders and early adopters to a mass market. Its distinct privacy characteristics reshape DeFi, Web3, and usher in a new digital asset known as ‘tokenised data’. This would allow users to take ownership of their data and earn rewards for staking it with applications, creating a responsible data economy.

By enabling confidential smart contracts, data is kept secret while being processed. This allows end-to-end data secrecy on the blockchain, opening possible DeFi use-cases such as under-collateralised lending and measures that prevent front/back running.

What is Oasis (ROSE) used for?

The ROSE token is used for transaction fees, staking, and delegation at the Oasis Network’s consensus layer. ROSE Tokens set aside for staking rewards are disbursed in accordance with on-chain reward mechanisms that calculate rewards based on how many blocks are proposed by validators, how many blocks are signed by a validator, how many nodes are participating in staking, and how many tokens are staked, among other factors. This staking schedule is distributed across 10 years following the network’s launch in November 2020.