OmiseGO (OMG) Review: A Blockchain, an Exchange and a Decentralized Bank

OmiseGO is one of the more ambitious cryptocurrency projects that seeks to become a blockchain, exchange and decentralized bank.  Built on the Ethereum network, it has focused on obtaining mass adoption in regions of the world such as India, SouthEast Asia, Japan and China, where many people are unbanked. Its connection with Omise, a widespread payment system throughout Asia, has given it an advantage as it seeks to become a digital asset for everyday use.

The Idea and the Team Behind OMG

Based in Thailand and developed by Omise, a payment company similar to Stripe founded by Jun Hasegawa and Donnie Harinsut, who remain the current CEO and COO of both companies. Recently, as a result of unofficial reports of death threats to the team, the team page has been removed from the website. Project advisers include Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood, co-founders of Ethereum. It also has official backing from The Bank of Thailand and the Thai Minister of Finance.

Since Omise is a payment wallet with wide adoption in Asia, OmiseGo is in an excellent position for mass adoption as a digital asset.

It is also positioned to be a viable option for those without bank accounts. In line with this philosophy, OmiseGO recently gave a $1 million donation to GiveCharity, a fund that gives loans to populations in extreme poverty.

“The crypto economy has grown immensely over the last year, bringing a great deal of wealth to many people and organizations within the ecosystem. In part we simply see an exciting opportunity to share that wealth. We hope the fortunes made in the crypto space will lead not to extravagant lifestyles but to extravagant generosity,” Jun Hasegawa, CEO of Omise wrote in the OmiseGO blog. OmiseGO has said that it wishes to support more unconditional loans to GiveDirectly in the future.

OMG Partnerships

OMG has forged strategic partnerships with leaders who have a reputation of driving mass adoption of their product. These partners include SBI Investment, SMDV, SMBC, Golden Gate Adventures and Ascend Capital, among others. It has also announced a partnership with Hoard, a platform that enables game developers to integrate blockchain technology quickly and simply into their games. It recently announced its creation of a video game which allows users full ownership of their content. This game, an 80s-themed dog game, Plasma Dog, is the first decentralized application (DApp) built on OmiseGO.

Another recent partnership announced was with Quantstamp, a smart contract auditing platform. In addition, Coinbase has announced that it is exploring the addition of OmiseGO to its cryptocurrency offerings along with many others.

Omise Merchant List

Omise has an extensive merchant list. Some, like McDonalds and Burger King, are already starting to accept OmiseGO as a form of payment. As the number of vendors that accept OmiseGO increases, the token will become more valuable and gain greater acceptance as a form of digital currency. The total vendor list is 35 companies with an approximate revenue of $30 billion annually.

Here is a partial list of Omise’s merchant list:

Siam Cement Group (SCG) – The largest cement company in Thailand consisting of 6 plants. The company sales in 2016 hit $12 billion.

McDonalds Thailand – The goal of this fast food branch is to reach $301 million by 2020.

B2S (Books Music Stationary) – With a 2016 revenue of over $9 billion, this chain includes 100 stores throughout Thailand.

The Coffee Club – This chain actually exists in Australia and New Zealand. Yearly revenue in 2016 was over $460 million.

Burger King Thailand – Sales reached $52 million in 2015.

The OMG Network

As mentioned, OmiseGOhas several very ambitious goals. This is reflected in its network which includes a few main components:

• eWallet Suite and Application Interface – The purpose of the eWallet Suite is to onboard vendors to the OMG network. Once connected to the network, users can send Ethereum-based tokens and tokenized fiat. In the future, the suite will support an agnostic exchange. The suite includes an API that connects between different systems.
• Plasma – Plasma is a framework for scaling the number of financial transactions on the blockchain using parent and child chains (up to 1 million per second). Instead of having long, complex computations stored on the blockchain, a child chain would submit a proof of validity for the transaction. The Plasma framework is what will enable OmiseGo to compete with more traditional payment systems currently in operation today.
• Decentralized Layer Exchange – The Decentralized Layer Exchange, or DEX layer, allows users to exchange digital assets. The idea is that a third-party should not be necessary for users to exchange assets. In other words, users will have complete control over their own assets.

Decentalized Exchange Layer (DEX)

• Proof-of-Stake Consensus Mechanism – OmiseGO operates based on the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus. The system has periods where staked tokens are locked and cannot be used, and periods where users withdraw to help stabilize the system. Users that are acting in good faith are rewarded by receiving a proportion of transaction fees; bad behavior is punished through burning staked tokens (known as “slashing” tokens)

In October of this year, OmiseGO announced that it would soon complete Plasma integration.

OMG Price History

OMG’s ICO successfully rose $25 million on November 24, 2017, in addition to the $20 million it was able to raise from private investors.

After the token was sold for an initial price of $0.0002 in July 2017, it reached a peak of $26.14 at the beginning of January 2018. It fell to $7.67 a month later and continued to be volatile until May. After the Thai Ministry of Finance announced its support of OmiseGO in August of 2017, the token rose slightly for a brief period.

Since then, the token has been on a downwards trend.

OMG Tokens

OMG has created a total of 140,245,398 tokens and will not produce any additional tokens in the future. The token is an ERC-20 token.

OMG tokens were allocated for operational expenses (20%), developers (10%) an airdrop (5%) and for general distribution (65%). The airdrop, which gave OMG tokens to all holders of more than 0.1 ETH, was completed in September 2017.

How to Purchase OMG

The main way to purchase OMG is through ZB.com, which currently has one of the largest volumes of OMG traded at over $7 million, allowing you to exchange OMG with BTC and USDT.

OMG is also available on the following exchanges:

• Huobi (Trade OMG with USDT on Huobi)
• IDCM (Trade OMG with BTC on IDCM)
• Huobi (Trade OMG with ETH on Huobi)
• DigiFinex (Trade OMG with USDT on DigiFinex)
• DigiFinex (Trade OMG with ETH on DigiFinex)

How to Store OMG

OMG can be stored in any wallet that supports ERC-20 tokens such as Coinomi, MetaMask and Myetherwallet.

For maximum security, however, you should store your OMG on hardware wallets such as Ledger Nano S and Trezor.

Roadmap and Future Updates

The OMG Network published an extensive version of their roadmap in May of this year. The different milestones of the roadmap correspond with different sections of a famous Chinese game called GO: Fuseki and Sente, Honte, Aji, Tesuji, and Tengen.

As for 2018 accomplishments, eWallet users were onboarded in Q1 of 2018 with basic features. Interconnectivity of users and the finalization of design of the eWallet is currently under development. Plasma integration and fiat withdrawal and deposit via the OMG wallet remain ongoing goals for 2018.

The final goal of OmiseGO is its ability to support enough transactions per second to compete with other payment options and have an operable decentralized exchange which is interoperable with different blockchains.