It seems bullish momentum is building for the young cryptocurrency platform OmiseGO (OMG). Recent news points to positive, continued development. On February 28, the OmiseGO team released its wallet code to the public on GitHub, making the software free and open source. On March 1, the OmiseGO team announced its newly redesigned website with fanfare. On March 2, the OmiseGO team published a new guide to OmiseGO for laypeople. The news updates were met with optimism on the Internet, and signal possible bullish sentiment.
OmiseGO is a blockchain platform that runs on the Ethereum (ETH) network. OMG is a ERC20 token that facilitates the OmiseGO project's objectives. OmiseGO is building a decentralized exchange and asset-backed blockchain that hopes to solve a coordination problem between financial institutions. OmiseGO is also developing a free and open source software development kit to allow anyone to integrate their business with the future OmiseGO decentralized exchange. OmiseGO's stated end goal is ambitious: to serve all global transactions with unlimited scalability. The OMG token functions as a proof-of-stake mechanism to help validate the OMG network. Staking OMG tokens earners holders dividend-like returns.
OmiseGO's new website looks clean and modern. The slogan, "Unbank the Banked," symbolizing the end goal of decentralizing finance, is front and center. It shows current partnerships with venture capitalists and financial institutions. There is an updated team and advisors page as well as easy-to-access information tabs in the upper-right. Overall, the redesigned website looks friendly, understandable, and innovative.
OMG currently has a $1.8 billion market capitalization. OMG tokens were initially sold by Omise Holdings Limited, an Asia-based company, in a $25 million initial coin offering (ICO) in June 2017. There was also a small airdrop in September to ETH holders. Now OMG is traded on various exchanges like Huobi, Binance, Bittrex, and Poloniex. The easiest way for Americans and European citizens to buy and sell OMG is to use USD or EUR to buy Bitcoin (BTC) or ETH on a fiat exchange like Coinbase/GDAX or Gemini, and transfer to Binance, Bittrex, or Poloniex. Long-term investors should withdraw their newly acquired OMG off the exchange to a private wallet like Mist, Parity, or MyEtherWallet, or a hardware wallet like Ledger or Trezor, for secure storage.
The price of OMG has partly reflected the recent good news. Currently around $18, it bounced back nicely from February 6 lows around $7.50, broke $20 at the end of February, and is trying to retest resistance levels. There is possible upside for OMG as the crypto market cycle shifts from altcoins back to majors BTC and ETH. Another attractive factor is the dividend yield for staking OMG tokens, as staking is a good inventive to hold. Potential risks include OMG's high sensitivity to movements in ETH. That correlation is natural as OMG is currently a token on the Ethereum network, and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin is an OmiseGO advisor. So perhaps allocating a large part of one's portfolio to OMG could raise diversification concerns. Finally, there is fierce competition in financial decentralization, for example with Stellar lumens (XLM) and Bitcoin's up-and-coming Lightning Network.
Investors who believe in the innovative mission of the OmiseGO project have reason to continue to be bullish. Individuals on the sidelines could take advantage of the uptrend by adding OMG to their watchlist.
The author holds a long position in BTC.