Project Overview
OverlayProtocol claims to be a 'decentralized data derivatives protocol that can long/short any stream of data that is non-manipulable and unpredictable', turning any data stream (such as on-chain metrics, NFT floor prices, social data, game statistics, temperature, etc.) into a 'market/contract' that can be built on-chain, with the counterparties being the protocol itself (or the collective of all OVL holders), rather than traditional counterparties or market makers.
Product and Working Principle
Product Form: A decentralized 'data derivatives/market' platform where users lock OVL to establish long/short positions, and PnL is settled in OVL; contracts can interface with various oracle data streams.
Key Mechanism Points: The protocol achieves settlement without traditional counterparties by 'dynamically minting/burning OVL'; pricing is based on periodically fetched data from the oracle and adjusted by algorithms defined within the protocol to manage price shocks and settlement logic. Thus, the solution to liquidity issues is not a traditional AMM, but rather the protocol itself acting as a 'counterparty' relying on the supply/burn mechanism of OVL.
Highlights and Differentiation
A wide range of 'tradable assets': not limited to standard cryptocurrency asset prices, but can also create markets based on on-chain metrics, NFT floor prices, social/game data, real-world values, etc., theoretically commodifying 'any non-manipulable, unpredictable stream of data'.
No Counterparty, Mint/Burn Model: Handles profits and losses through the mint/burn mechanism within the protocol, using OVL for collateral and settlement, providing capital efficiency and theoretically zero spread trading experience.
Financing Situation
In 2021, approximately $2.215M in seed/early stage financing, with participation from Polychain, 1kx, Metacartel, etc.
Approximately $704k in fundraising during the IDO phase in 2025.
Technical Team and Founders Background
Adam Kay - Co-founder / Core Technology Direction, who has previously had postdoctoral/researcher-level academic experience at MIT.
Wesley Kay - Co-founder, COO / Head of Design, responsible for product design, operations, fundraising, etc., has led the design and launch of multiple startup products (indicating multiple entrepreneurial/product launch experiences).
Team Open Source/Engineering Activity
GitHub org has multiple repositories, with recent commits and records from 59 repos, showing public engineering codebases and activity.
Economic Model
Project
Value / Description
Total Token Supply (Initial Issuance)
88,888,888 OVL
Main Allocation Categories
Community 52.36% ≈ 46,542,222 OVL
Founders and Investors 39.77% ≈ 35,351,111 OVL
Foundation 4.52% ≈ 4,017,778 OVL
Services/Advisors 3.36% ≈ 2,986,667 OVL