Every month, the Origin team publishes an update to our token holders and the broader community. We hope you enjoy our April 2023 edition.
April innovations bring May transformations! That’s how the saying goes, right?
In April, Origin Story and Origin DeFi have been busy building the latest innovations that lay the groundwork for what’s to come in May and beyond.
Origin Story released its Royalty Leaderboard on partner marketplaces this month. The Royalty Leaderboard tracks how much each collector has paid in royalties across marketplaces, and creators are already incentivizing this gamification system with exclusive perks and NFT rewards. As we experiment with incentives and points-based rewards systems, the new leaderboard plays an important role in driving volume to Origin Story marketplaces.
Origin’s DeFi arm has deployed Origin Ether contracts for testing, and OpenZeppelin is slated to audit the token’s code and yield-bearing strategies in early May. Pending that no major concerns are found in Origin Ether’s code, OETH will become available to everyone very soon.
In regards to token adoption, both OGV and OGN were listed on BitMart last month. BitMart averages around $1 billion in daily trading volume, and now the platform’s millions of users have access to both of Origin’s governance tokens. OGN also saw added support on new exchanges last month, including BitPanda and SwapZone.
Origin Ether is launching soon; here’s what you need to know in order to stack ETH faster.
By now, you’ve probably seen the buzz around Origin Ether (OETH) on the Origin Dollar Twitter account. Origin’s DeFi arm has been building a new token, Origin Ether, that allows users to grow their ETH balances faster. Similarly to Origin Dollar, OETH is a yield-bearing token that accumulates yield directly to users’ wallets, beating yield earned by liquid staking derivatives and various DeFi strategies.
If you’ve missed the details on OETH, here’s what you need to know:
Leading security firm OpenZeppelin is scheduled to audit Origin Ether in May. OpenZeppelin helps audit firms like Coinbase, Aave, The Ethereum Foundation, and Origin Dollar. Pending the audits’ findings, Origin Protocol anticipates that OETH will become available for everyone very soon.
Check out our new partnerships, upcoming campaigns, and Origin Story’s Royalty Leaderboard.
April has been a busy month for Origin Story and the broader NFT space. Senior team members attended NFT NYC in mid-April, discussing non-fungible token innovation at a host of panels. Check out our recap for a full rundown of the event.
We haven’t just been discussing innovation – we’ve been doing it. Over the last few weeks, Story has rolled out incentivized Royalty Leaderboards across supported platforms. This feature affirms our creator-centric vision by ranking users according to royalties paid across all marketplaces. Working directly with creators, Origin Story offers NFTs, exclusive merchandise, and other benefits to top royalty payers in each community.
April kicked off with the launch of the official POGs NFT marketplace, serving one of the most iconic brands of the 90s. The platform features a brand new collection from POG, which launched on Ethereum last month. Excitingly, users will be able to claim bonus rewards for using the official POGs marketplace, such as Bitcoin Ordinal NFTs!
We’ve also joined forces with the web3 fine art collective Lunatics to power its marketplace. Lunatics is the brainchild of acclaimed artist Chistopher Lizarraga and 3D artist Leonardo Fonseca. The upcoming genesis collection will be minted on Lunatics’ own launchpad, with Story hosting secondary sales.
Additionally, the official Roo Troop marketplace is now the sole marketplace for Roo trading! Roo Troop blocked Opensea and Blur from listing its NFTs, trusting Origin Story to be the primary storefront for all the collection’s assets. Soon after the team made this decision, listings and users increased sharply on Origin Story’s storefront.
OpenZeppelin published its findings on Origin Dollar’s latest update, greenlighting a new Uniswap strategy.
OUSD’s APYs have stabilized following March’s spike into the triple-digits. Since then, yields have held steadfast around 5%, significantly beating yields earned from Aave, Compound, and Curve. As of writing, OUSD yield is primarily being generated on Morpho Aave, Curve, and Convex, with a small allocation to Compound.
Excitingly, OpenZeppelin has published its latest audit on Origin Dollar, reviewing new code for a Uniswap strategy and the OUSD Dripper. The Uniswap strategy further diversifies how yield is earned with Origin Dollar, and the team anticipates the strategy will increase the amount of sustainable yield being generated by the protocol. Instead of directly utilizing Uniswap pools, OUSD auctions off liquidity to liquidity providers, limiting downside risk and even ensuring a minimum return on the borrowed capital.
The OUSD Dripper allows for more predictable and less volatile yield for Origin Dollar holders. The Dripper takes yield earned and disperses it out evenly over a period of time, allowing holders to earn more predictable yield over the short-term.
With no high severity problems reported by OpenZeppelin, these upgrades are slated to roll out to Origin Dollar shorly after the launch of Origin Ether.
OGN Season 3 staking locks on June 6th. OGV’s utility is expanding in May with OETH.
While many altcoin prices remained steady in the month of April, increased interest in Bitcoin and ETH have signaled that the worst may be behind us. Last month, OGV continued its scintillating run, up over 25% in the last 30 days.
OGV has sustained its upward trend since the beginning of the year, maintaining its strength in April. Indicative of its price action, anticipation is growing around OGV being used for value-accrual and governance of Origin Ether. With a market capitalization under $10 million and the majority of OGV staked, the token’s price has remained more volatile than many similar tokens.
Yield farmers currently have great opportunities to earn yield on OGV via Curve, with additional incentives to earn up to 98% APY for a limited time.
OGV is about to enjoy fresh utility as the governance token for the Origin Ether ecosystem. At present, nearly 80% of all OGV in circulation is staked. We anticipate that this number will increase with the launch of OETH.
Meanwhile, OGN holders are receiving heightened staking rewards via the OGN Season 3 staking pool. The broader altcoin climate remains uncertain, with heightened volatility seeing traders change sentiment rapidly. As a reminder, OGN Season 3 Staking is now well underway. Staking locks on June 6th – meaning there’s still time to get involved and claim a share of rewards!
The Season 3 pool currently contains over 62 million OGN, with rewards for Season 3 being subsidized by the Origin Foundation after a recent governance proposal passed. Subsidized rewards are in response to Origin Story’s 0% marketplace fee discount, which has aided in gaining new listings and transactions on our partners’ marketplaces.
Origin Protocol welcomes 2 new engineers and a Head of Community to the team.
Origin Protocol made significant additions to its team by hiring three new employees in April. Nick Addison, Rafael Ugolini, and Tom Osman are the new members of the team that bring a wealth of web3 experience and knowledge with them.
Nick Addison has joined Origin’s DeFi arm as a Senior Engineer and is expected to play a significant role in the development of Origin's OUSD and OETH. With his previous experience at mStable, Nick has an in-depth understanding of DeFi yields and stablecoins, which will be extremely valuable for Origin Protocol's yield-bearing tokens.
Rafael Ugolini is Origin Protocol’s new Engineering Manager and will be responsible for overseeing the development of OUSD and OETH. His experience at mStable and knowledge of smart contract development has already proven to be a valuable asset for Origin Protocol. Rafael's expertise in this area will help ensure that Origin’s DeFi arm continues to operate securely, efficiently, and with high standards for innovation.
Tom “Ozzy” Osman has been hired as the Head of Community, and his primary focus will be on revamping Origin Protocol's Discord and Telegram communities. He will be implementing a range of new features to improve user engagement, including incentivized participation and tiered Discord roles. Ozzy has engaged our community with Zealy, allowing participants to earn NFTs from Origin’s partners.
His experience in community building and marketing will be valuable in ensuring that Origin Story and Origin DeFi continue to grow and evolve. On balance, the new hires in April have brought a great deal of experience and knowledge to Origin Protocol, and they are expected to play a vital role in the platform's future development.
While we’ve filled most open positions with top-tier talent, we’re still in search of a stellar product manager for Origin’s DeFi products. Our ideal candidate has a wealth of experience building DeFi products, has immense knowledge of Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem, and is obsessed with data-driven decision making.
Think you got what it takes? Shoot us a message in our Discord, or apply directly through our job listing.
April was a busy month at Origin Protocol, and some of our announcements may have gotten lost on your Twitter feed. To stay in the know with what we’re building, be sure to turn on Tweet notifications, and check out our blogs on story.xyz/blog and ousd.com/blog. We regularly post long-form content on OUSD integrations, DAO proposals, and new features for Origin Story. Here are some of our favorite posts you may have missed:
Want to get in touch with us to launch your NFT marketplace? Looking to demo a product we made during innovation week? Hit us up at [email protected] to get in touch with our team!
