The DFINITY Foundation, a Swiss not-for-profit organization of leading computer scientists and cryptographers, and a major contributor to the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP), announces the launch of Orbit. For the first time, builders will have a simple and robust on-chain governance framework that supports multiple blockchains including ICP, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Solana. Orbit’s smart contract-based approval system provides secure, multi-user governance of digital assets and smart contracts across multiple blockchain ecosystems, replacing complex and protocol-specific governance systems and providing a new level of seamless and streamlined cross-chain governance.
Complex and insecure governance models have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in assets lost due to hacks, as well as presenting significant barriers to entry for startups and smaller teams. In place of inflexible governance models, ecosystem-specific limitations, costly and insecure centralised intermediaries and imperfect custom-built solutions, Orbit provides builders with a flexible, unified and robust secure system to manage their assets and smart contracts.
At the core of Orbit are two key components:
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Orbit Station – The platform’s main smart contract, providing:
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Policy enforcement and user management with flexible approval workflows.
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Secure transaction execution.
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Comprehensive audit logging for transparency and accountability.
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Smart contract management capabilities.
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Crypto assets management.
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Advanced features such as scheduling of transactions.
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Orbit Wallet – A browser-based interface for seamless asset management, featuring:
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Wallet features for managing crypto assets.
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Smart contract management capabilities.
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Batch transactions for improved efficiency.
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An address book for managing trusted counterparties.
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Granular permissions to define custom access controls.
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Detailed audit logging to ensure full traceability of all operations.
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“Orbit was born out of a real-world need to streamline governance and enhance security in treasury and smart contract management,” said Pierre Samaties, Chief Business Officer at the DFINITY Foundation. “The development of Orbit was shaped by DFINITY’s own Finance team, who have successfully used the platform for secure treasury management. By making these capabilities available to the broader ICP ecosystem as an open-source solution, we empower teams to scale confidently while maintaining full control over their assets and smart contracts.”
Currently, Orbit natively supports ICP and ICRC-1 tokens and native governance for ICP-based smart contracts, with near-term planned native support for ETH, ERC-20 and Bitcoin tokens. While direct multi-chain governance is on the roadmap, developers can already extend Orbit’s capabilities by:
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Integrating custom ICP smart contracts that interact with external blockchains.
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Using Orbit as an authorization layer for managing multi-chain operations securely.
Teams interested in exploring Orbit can visit orbit.global or try the Orbit CLI to experience the future of seamless, policy-driven governance—one cross-chain approval layer for all their Web3 needs.
About DFINITY Foundation
The DFINITY Foundation was established in Zürich, Switzerland, in 2016. Since then, it has become the largest blockchain tech employer in Switzerland and the DACH Region, with talented people from local and international organizations, such as IBM Research, Google Research, Meta, etc. The DFINITY Foundation is the creator and major contributor to the Internet Computer, a third-generation blockchain that extends the functionality of the Internet from a network that connects devices globally to a computing platform that hosts systems and services directly on the blockchain. https://dfinity.org/