How Orbit works

How a launch works

You sign one transaction to the Orbit factory. The factory checks your configuration with the same rules the contract uses, records the launch in its on-chain registry, and creates one account for it — <slug>.<factory>. That single contract is the token, the collection, or both, together with any holder claims and gated sale.

The factory stores one launch contract template and deploys a copy of it to each new account. The template's SHA-256 hash is public in the factory's configuration and matches the code hash explorers show for every launch account. Creating the account, deploying the code and initialising it happen in a single atomic receipt: if initialisation fails, the account is never created and its balance is refunded.

The launch deposit pays for storing that code and the launch's own data on its account (about 4.4 testnet NEAR). It stays locked with the keyless account. The unused part of the registry allowance is refunded.

Launch accounts have no access keys. Nobody — not you, not Orbit — can upgrade them, re-initialise them or withdraw from them.

Token allocations

Tokens are standard NEP-141 contracts with NEP-145 storage management and NEP-148 metadata. The whole supply is minted in the initialisation call to the allocations you configured, and the contract requires those allocations to add up to exactly the total supply. There is no mint method afterwards.

Allocations are transfers, not vesting schedules: each recipient can move its tokens immediately. Orbit does not yet implement on-chain vesting, and does not pretend to with countdowns.

NFT collections

Collections are NEP-171 contracts with NEP-177 metadata, NEP-178 approvals and NEP-181 enumeration. Token IDs are sequential. Every mint checks the pause switch, the mint window, the supply cap and the per-wallet limit, then requires a deposit covering the price and the storage the new NFTs use; the price is paid to the creator and the unused deposit is refunded in the same transaction. Royalties (NEP-199) are not implemented.

NFT-holder claims

A connected launch reserves part of the token supply for holders. The token, the collection and the reserve live in the same contract: the reserve is minted at launch to the launch account itself, and the contract refuses to initialise unless that allocation equals exactly what the claim tiers and the sale require.

To claim for NFT #n, the contract, in one step:

1. rejects the call if NFT #n is in no tier, or already has a claim record;
2. reads the owner of NFT #n from its own collection and rejects the call unless it is the caller;
3. records the claim and transfers the tier amount from the reserve to the caller;
4. keeps the storage this added (about 0.003 NEAR) from the deposit and refunds the rest.

These happen in a single receipt with no cross-contract calls, so a claim either completes entirely or changes nothing. There is no “in progress” state to get stuck in.

NFT-gated token sales

A connected launch can also reserve tokens for a gated sale. During the holder window, only the current owner of an NFT can buy, up to a fixed amount per NFT ID; ownership is read from the collection on every purchase. An optional public window then lets any account buy up to a per-account limit.

Like claims, a purchase is a single step: the ownership check, the limit update, the token transfer and the payment to the creator happen together or not at all. Claims and the sale draw on separate counters, so neither can spend the other's share of the reserve. After the sale ends, the creator can reclaim unsold tokens.

How ownership eligibility works

Eligibility is checked against current ownership at the moment of the claim, not a historical snapshot. Whoever holds an NFT can claim its allocation once. If an NFT is sold before it is claimed, the buyer can claim; after a claim, that NFT can never claim again, whoever holds it. Orbit chose this over a Merkle snapshot because it needs no trusted party to reconstruct past ownership and publish a root.

What creators control

• Collection creators can pause and resume minting, and mint to any account within the supply cap — including outside the public mint window. In a connected launch, NFTs the creator mints can claim allocations and use sale quota like any other NFT.
• Nothing else can be changed after launch: not supply, price, mint window, allocations or claim tiers.
• Creators choose the economics. Orbit checks that they are consistent and funded — not that they are fair.

Assumptions and limitations

• Testnet only. Assets have no monetary value.
• The contracts are tested but have not been audited.
• The factory owner can change the template future launches use, and pause new launches. Existing launches are unaffected.
• Media is stored by reference. IPFS content is content-addressed but stays available only while it is pinned; plain HTTPS media can be changed by its host, and Orbit labels it as such.
• Data comes from public RPC endpoints and the FastNEAR index. If they fail, Orbit shows an error rather than empty or stale numbers.