April Was All Systems OmiseGo, Up 52% Over Past Month 🚨 This article is 7 years old...
April Was All Systems OmiseGo, Up 52% Over Past Month
4 min read
Updated: Nov. 25, 2019 at 4:24 am UTC
Photo by SpaceX on Unsplash
OmiseGo’s impressive recovery has once again proven its worthiness amongst the coveted top 20 coins by market cap.
A few glancing blows of controversy have not been enough to derail the coin’s recent performance, with a series of exchange listings and partnerships seeing it erupt to a two-month high.
What is OmiseGo?
The prodigious child of established payments provider Omise, OmiseGo’s public PoS blockchain is yet another humanitarian attempt to “bank the unbanked” — disrupting traditional payment networks that have held monopolies for decades — the likes of SWIFT, CHIPS or FedWire.
This mission is by no means unique, yet OmiseGo’s angle is radical. Where the bulk of cryptocurrencies attempt to replace fiat entirely, OMG is the eternal peacemaker — a one-stop-shop for payment and exchange for currencies of all description (fiat included).
Put simply, OmiseGo is an Ethereum-based bridge to connect payment processors, financial institutions and gateway providers. Complete with a decentralized exchange, eWallet SDK, and smart contract platform, the Bangkok-based project sees itself as an all-encompassing payment solution — offering peer-to-peer transaction for payments, payrolls, cross-border remittances and more.
Tackling what it calls a “messy web of indirect ownership and delayed settlement”, the OmiseGo team enjoys heavy affiliation with Ethereum, toting advisory (and revelry) from the revered Vitalik Buterin:
Right now my favorite token model is OMG-style staking tokens. Reasons:
* Not a medium-of-exchange token
* Clear valuation model (expected discounted future tx fees minus node operation cost)
* Requires running node to get returns, not passive income (so more legally defensible)— Vitalik "Not giving away ETH" Buterin (@VitalikButerin) December 12, 2017
Exchange Listings Spur on Two-Month High
April 26 once again proved the formidable power of a fresh exchange listing — OMG jumping up to its two-month high after securing a listing on Bithumb — South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
We're listing Omisego(OMG) and Kyber Network(KNC) on Bithumb today!?
*Estimated listing time : around 6:00 pm (KST)@omise_go @KyberNetwork— Bithumb (@BithumbOfficial) April 26, 2018
While OMG had, in fact, celebrated a listing earlier in the day — being listed on Indian exchange Zebpay — the eminent Bitthumb seemed to push its Indian counterpart out of the spotlight with a timely eruption in the OMG charts.
Big News Turns ‘Fake News’
Celebrations were somewhat short-lived, however, after OmiseGo became embroiled in a textbook Twitter scam — CoinDesk mistakenly including a scam OMG giveaway link in its Bitthumb listing article. Jumping into action, the OmiseGo team fired off a desperate plea to the media giant:
We want to acknowledge the (entirely valid) questions and criticisms about the clarity of our current roadmap concerning recent shifts in strategy, the state of staking, Honte and the hard spoon.
— OmiseGO (@omise_go) April 29, 2018
Scrabbling to remove the malicious link, CoinDesk’s belated remediation did little to repair the damage — OmiseGo soon finding themselves at the epicenter of a political tempest. Led by Ethereum’s all-powerful Vitalik Buterin, an industry-wide attack was mounted against the erroneous CoinDesk. A furious Buterin noted:
I am boycotting @coindesk's Consensus 2018 conference this year, and strongly encourage others to do the same. Here is my reasoning why.
1. Coindesk is recklessly complicit in enabling giveaway scams. See their latest article on OMG, which *directly links* to a giveaway scam. pic.twitter.com/WDr9uZ8XOw
— Vitalik "Not giving away ETH" Buterin (@VitalikButerin) April 26, 2018
In an act of livid defiance, the OMG team quickly sided with Buterin and Cardano’s Charles Hoskinson to boycott CoinDesk’s annual conference, Consensus. OmiseGo stated:
Please R/T@coindesk article links to a scam website impersonating the #OmiseGO blog. Real blog is: blog DOT omisego DOT network
Please protect your readers and our communities by taking down your article immediately @coindesk. Thank you.
Please R/T #Ethereumspirit https://t.co/sYOYtH6g72
— OmiseGO (@omise_go) April 26, 2018
Unsurprisingly, the ordeal was not enough to throw off OMG’s bullish disposition — possibly fueled earlier by several prolific partnership announcements and high-profile meetings.
Publicity Galore
Starting April off with a bang, OmiseGo announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Shinhan, one of Korea’s largest commercial banks. Shinhan has tapped into OmiseGo’s generous portfolio of payment solutions — despite Shinhan’s earlier interest in a Ripple pilot program. OMG’s CEO and Founder Jun Hasegawa wrote:
The agreement confirms mutual interest, and closer collaboration between the parties to further advance ShinhanCard’s digital offerings across its portfolio of payment services and mobile application in today’s growing mobile payments market.
Just days after, OmiseGo welcomed the prolific stablecoin MakerDAO as a trading pair on its decentralized exchange.
With the mutual goal of financial decentralization, OmiseGo and MakerDAO’s move is compelling — providing OmiseGo a stable asset needed to build its emerging empire, while providing Maker an additional currency as collateral — a fundamental requirement of how DAI achieves stability.
Next on the list of appointments was APEC — Hasegawa enlightening APEC Business Advisory Council members on the benefits of its blockchain-based payment solutions. The significance of this weighty meeting was not missed by the OMG team, who wrote:
It's an honor to be a part of the discussions with @APEC. We're strategizing on how a regional sandbox for regulators, financial institutions & fintech organizations can better drive collaborative innovation & adoption. pic.twitter.com/IXmevARA85
— OmiseGO (@omise_go) April 17, 2018
As April drew its last breath, OmiseGo CEO streamed a high-profile AMA session with Electrify Asia — an emerging retail ecosystem targeting the Asian marketplace. Discussing the advantages of a blockchain-based energy infrastructure, the two CEOs heaped healthy portions of praise on one another.
What’s next for OmiseGo?
As April draws to a close, one might wonder how May could possibly upstage this list of decisively progressive milestones. Filled with a number of significant developments, one would assume OMG’s acceleration has been organic — carried by a sound momentum towards its vision of a disruptive payment nexus.
Having caught the eye of the most influential allies it may need to achieve this bold vision — financial giants, NGOs and prominent cryptocurrencies, the OmiseGo team won’t be losing a wink of sleep over CoinDesk’s misfire.
For more information on OmiseGo, including price, market cap, volume and technical information, see our OmiseGo coin profile.
