Top Things You Should Know About OmiseGO (OMG)

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21 Apr 2024

Hey guys, I’m back with another comprehensive Q&A piece, this time for the forward thinking financial services cryptocurrency – OmiseGO (OMG).
OmiseGO is a cryptocurrency and global platform for open financial services that leverage the benefits of a digitized economy across geographies, asset classes, and applications. OmiseGO is building unstoppable financial infrastructure that knows no boundaries.
The following piece is similar to my latest articles on iExec (RLC), Kyber Network (KNC), and Theta (THETA), so if you haven’t already seen those, be sure to check them out as well.
Hope you enjoy!
The list of Q&A is kind of long so first comes the list of questions that I have prepared the answers to:

What is OmiseGO?
Who and When Created OmiseGO?
What use cases does OMG token have?
What is the difference between OmiseGO and Omise?
What is OmiseGO Network?
What is OmiseGO eWallet?
Is Vitalik Advising OmiseGO?
What are some notable OmiseGO partnerships?
Where to store OmiseGO?
Where to Buy & Sell OmiseGO?

1. What is OmiseGO?

OmiseGO website homepage

OmiseGO is a decentralized blockchain project on Ethereum that’s building a next-generation financial network, open payment platform, and decentralized economy.
The mission of OmiseGO is to enable people to securely access financial services, invest, exchange, and spend digital assets anytime, anywhere through the OmiseGO platform. OmiseGO aims to accomplish this goal by building unstoppable, censorship-resistant infrastructure for the evolving digitization of the global economy.
That said, the OmiseGO smart contract platform and infrastructure provides businesses and individuals with the ability to move funds between payment systems and decentralized blockchains like Ethereum.
In doing this, OmiseGO can provide better banking financial services for everyone and essentially ‘bank the unbanked’.

OmiseGO Core Values

Embrace Transparency - OmiseGO values trust, and strives to be open and honest with its employees, partners, and customers.
Be Impact Driven - OmiseGO ensures that their actions have a positive impact on the lives of people in its ecosystem and beyond.
Strive for Openness - OmiseGO is an open-source project with no boundaries and no borders.
Champion Innovation - OmiseGO strives to stay ahead of the market by employing bold and diverse expertise in the realm of finance.

2. Who and When Created OmiseGO?

OmiseGO founders and team

OmiseGO was created by Omise, a Thailand based fintech company, and its founders Jun Hasegawa and Ezra Don (Donnie) Harinsut in June 2017.
Prior to the official launch of the OmiseGO project and OMG cryptocurrency, the Omise company was established in 2013 and later formed the Omise Blockchain Lab in 2015 to explore how blockchain technology could solve real-world payment needs for businesses.
For 3 years, the Omise Blockchain Lab researched and tested blockchain technologies with financial services before finally establishing OmiseGO (Omise Go Pte. Ltd.) in 2017.
Moreover, while Omise is the company behind OmiseGO, the company’s founders Jun Hasegawa and Donnie Harinsu played an integral role in the creation of OmiseGO.
Both founders have entrepreneurial backgrounds in the financial technology front and are committed to providing people from around the world with secure and open access to financial services.

OmiseGO (OMG) Launch and Issuance

OmiseGO held an initial coin offering (ICO) on June 23, 2017 and an initial presale on June 7, 2017.
The presale equated to $21 million in fundraising and the public sale equated to $4 million, making the total amount raised $25 million.
A total of 140.2 million OMG tokens were created following the sale, in which 91.3 million OMG (65.1% of total supply) were distributed during the sale.
Additionally, 28 million OMG (20% of total supply) were allocated to OmiseGO for future development and launch of the platform, 13.9 million OMG (9.9% of the total supply) were allocated to team members, and 7 million OMG (5% of total supply) were reserved for an OMG airdrop.
The total supply and circulating supply of OmiseGO is 140,245,398 OMG.

3. What use cases does OMG token have?

OmiseGO logo

OMG is the native cryptocurrency securing and powering the public and permissionless OmiseGO network.
OMG’s primary use cases include:

Staking to secure and validate transactions on the OmiseGO Network
Payment token with merchants accepting it

Staking to Secure and Validate Transactions
OMG is first and foremost a staking token.
OMG token holders can participate in OMG’s Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network by staking (depositing) their tokens as a security deposit when running a validator node. When running a validator node, you are helping to secure the OMG network and validate transactions.
For providing this service, you can be rewarded in any currency, including but not limited to OMG. The more coins you stake, the greater your staking reward will be.
Payment Token
OMG can be used as a payment token with merchants accepting it as a form of currency. Note that this is a secondary use case for OMG right now, but it may become a primary use case the OMG network evolves, and as digital assets become more widely used by the mainstream.

4. What is the difference between OmiseGO and Omise?

Omise company website homepage

The difference between OmiseGO and Omise is that they are two different products and companies.
See how OmiseGo and Omise differ below:
Omise:

Omise is an established fintech company and payment gateway that integrates with retail platforms both online and offline to enable mobile payments.
Over 10,000 merchants in the Asia-Pacific region are integrated with Omise’s payment solution.
Omise integrates with major eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce, Magento, and OpenCart.

OmiseGO

OmiseGO is a subsidiary of Omise and its payment products are separate from one another, (Omise leverages traditional technologies, OmiseGO utilizes blockchain technology.)
OmiseGO products and services have not yet realized their full potential and are still in development, while Omise’s products and services are established and widely adopted.

5. What is OmiseGO Network?

(Source)

The OmiseGO Network is a decentralized, public network that enables high throughput, low cost, peer-to-peer transactions in real-time, to facilitate an array of financial services that knows no boundaries.

OmiseGO Network Features

High Throughput
The OmiseGO Network can process up to 4,000 peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions per second (TPS), making it one of the fastest P2P networks out there. This high throughput is thanks to the network’s Proof-of-Authority (PoA) consensus mechanism.
Low Cost
The OmiseGO Network has 1/10th of the operational cost of Ethereum, meaning users can expect to pay up to 90% lower fees than Ethereum for payments on the OMG network.
High Adaptability
The technology utilized in the OmiseGO Network is extensible for a wide variety of use cases and is also platform agnostic, meaning it’s interoperable with other infrastructures.
Ethereum-Level Security
Being built on top of Ethereum, the OmiseGO Network benefits from Ethereum’s own security guarantees. Also, the decentralization of the watchers ensures user funds remain safe on Plasma.
Seamless Integration
The OmiseGO Network has an intuitively designed UI/UX so that it can be easily integrated into a wide variety of applications.

OmiseGO Network Ecosystem

Application Layer
Various financial applications such as wallets, point of sale products, and other financial services can be built and connected with the public OmiseGO Network.
Decentralized Exchange and Peer-to-Peer Payment Layer
OMG’s DEX layer provides the back end for easy exchange between digital assets on the OMG Network. Utilizing this layer, businesses and individuals can securely interact and transact with one another in real-time.

6. What is OmiseGO eWallet?

(Source)

The OmiseGO eWallet Suite is a collection of development tools and resources that enable developers to build a complete eWallet solution connected to the OmiseGO Network. It enables businesses to easily integrate digital asset solutions and connect their customers to a digitalized marketplace.

OmiseGO eWallet Features for Business Needs

Manage Digital Assets - The OmiseGO eWallet enables businesses to manage loyalty points, fiat money, and digital assets all in one place.
Send and Receive Payments Instantly - Businesses can pay for goods and services or receive payments from customers within seconds using the OMG eWallet.
Customize Experiences - Software development kits (SDKs) allow for easy customization, account creation, token issuance, activity logs, and more. Businesses can add features and services according to their needs.
Use Loyalty Points Seamlessly - Businesses can exchange, collect, and redeem loyalty points with ease.
Transact Stress-free - The eWallet operates 24/7 and works anywhere with an internet connection.

7. Is Vitalik Advising OmiseGO?

No, Vitalik Buterin is no longer advising OmiseGO.
When OmiseGO was first established in 2017, the project listed Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, as an Advisor to OmiseGO on the project’s website. During OmiseGO’s early days, Buterin clearly supported OmiseGO and was involved with the project.
As seen in the tweet below, Vitalik attended an OmiseGO meeting prior to the project’s launch in May 2017:

In another tweet posted in December 2017, Vitalik proclaimed his fondness of OmiseGO and its OMG token model:

Though Vitalik was clearly involved with OmiseGO in some way, it’s relatively unclear whether or not he was an official advisor for OmiseGO or not. Nevertheless, Vitalik is no longer listed as an Advisor to OmiseGO on the project’s website.

8. What are some notable OmiseGO partnerships?

OmiseGO has established an array of notable partnerships including:

Burger King Thailand (Minor International Pcl)
McDonalds*
Shinhancard
Hoard Exchange
Coinbase Listing

Burger King Thailand (Minor International Pcl)
OmiseGO partnered with Minor International Pcl, one of the largest hospitality, restaurant, and lifestyle companies in the Asia-Pacific region to launch OmiseGO’s e-wallet suite as the back-end for Minor Group’s Food and Beverage (F&B) loyalty program.
Through this partnership, customers are able to accrue loyalty points when making purchases through Burger King’s existing mobile application.
McDonalds Thailand
OmiseGO’s parent company Omise partnered with McDonalds Thailand to be the exclusive payment gateway for its website and mobile delivery app.
Back in 2017 when this partnership was announced, it made headlines everywhere in the cryptocurrency space and OMG investors were very excited that OmiseGO had a direct connection with McDonald's for potential blockchain tech implementations.
However, this partnership did not, and still doesn't, include the use of OmiseGO’s blockchain infrastructure. It does, however, solidify that Omise/OmiseGO is a serious player in the payments space.
Shinhancard
OmiseGO partnered with Shinancard, a global top 5 credit card issuer, to develop a proof-of-concept (POC) cross border, loyalty point program. The POC was built on top of OmiseGO’s ‘enterprise interface’ tool to allow enterprise developers or a technical team to extend on the POC.
Hoard Exchange
OmiseGo partnered with HoardExchange, a video game company that allows users to freely buy, rent, sell, or trade gaming assets with one another, to provide the back-end infrastructure for the video game, Plasma Dog.
The Plasma Dog video game is built on the OmiseGO Network to enable transactions within the game’s ecosystem and to allow interoperable assets with systems in the real world.
Coinbase
OmiseGO (OMG) was listed on Coinbase, the popular US-based cryptocurrency exchange, on May 21, 2020. Coinbase customers can now buy, sell, convert, send, receive, or store OMG at Coinbase.com and on the Coinbase mobile apps.

9. Where to store OmiseGO?

OmiseGO is a popular and well established ERC-20 token residing on top of the public Ethereum blockchain. That said, there are numerous good options out there for securely storing your OmiseGO (OMG) cryptocurrency.

Most Popular OmiseGO (OMG) Wallets:

MyEtherWallet (MEW) (web)
Ledger Nano S (hardware)
Trust Wallet (mobile)
Exodus Wallet (desktop, mobile)
Atomic Wallet (desktop, mobile)

In addition to the above-listed wallets, OmiseGO (OMG) can be stored on a wide variety of other reputable ERC-20 token supported wallets. However, before you choose a wallet to store OMG, try and choose one with the following features:

In-Wallet token swaps - exchange OMG for other cryptos without leaving you wallet
User control of private keys - not your keys, not your coins
Active developer community - up-to-date maintenance
Back up & security features - pin codes, seed phrase
Good reviews - highly recommended

10. Where to Buy & Sell OmiseGO?

OmiseGO (OMG) can be bought and sold on a peer-to-peer (P2P) basis but the most popular way to buy, sell, or trade OmiseGO is through cryptocurrency exchanges.
You can buy OMG with cryptocurrency or fiat at the following top exchanges. In most cases, you will have to fund your account with fiat, buy Bitcoin or Ethereum, and then use BTC or ETH to buy OmiseGO (symbol OMG).

Binance - BTC, ETH, USDT
Bitfinex - BTC, ETH, USD
OKEx - BTC, ETH, USDT
Huobi Global - BTC, ETH, USDT
Coinbase Pro - BTC, USD, EUR, GBP

In addition to the exchanges listed above, OmiseGO (OMG) is also traded on a wide array of other exchanges and platforms that enable people to buy, sell, or trade cryptocurrencies.
Hope you enjoyed that read, Let me know if I have missed something in the comments.
Cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) Decentralized Exchange Decentralized Finance OmiseGO (OMG)
✍️ Originally Posted: Publish0x