We’re excited to announce that Origin Protocol (OGN) and Origin Dollar Governance (OGV) will soon be live for spot trading on Bitmart. As of today (4/13/2023) deposits have opened for OGV and OGN depositors. Established in 2017, Bitmart is home to nearly 800 trading pairs and boasts over $1 billion in daily trading volume.
Key Dates:
Please ensure that deposits of OGV to Bitmart are executed via the Ethereum network. Using another network will result in a loss of funds.
OGV serves as the governance and value accrual token of the Origin Dollar (OUSD) ecosystem. Listing on Bitmart opens up OGV to an ever wider audience as we continue to broaden access to the best risk-adjusted stablecoin yield generating protocol in DeFi.
At present, a mammoth ~78% of all OGV is staked to the protocol, illustrating the community’s steadfast support of OUSD’s long term vision.
OGV stakers are granted economic and voting power in the form of veOGV. At the same time, stakers enjoy the benefits of over 31% APY.
Get started with OGV staking now
Every month, the Origin team publishes an update to our token holders and the broader community.
We hope you enjoy our March 2023 edition.
Since 2020, Origin’s focus in the DeFi realm has been to offer the best risk-adjusted yield on stablecoins. With the onset of the highest U.S inflation in 40 years, there’s a clear need for people to gain exposure outside the legacy financial system.
OETH is a new, ether-denominated yield product that we’re excited to bring to DeFi markets. 👀 We’re incredibly excited to unveil more details about the upcoming launch in the next few weeks. We’re currently building in public via our Discord, so you can catch the latest alpha there.
More alpha: OGV will be the value-accrual token for Origin Ether.
Now, let’s talk about how Origin Dollar handled the USDC depeg in March.
Origin’s commitment to security is unmatched––it’s why we’re the quickest team in DeFi to respond to bug reports (via Immunifi). It’s also why Origin Dollar was able to achieve its most profitable month in nearly a year. OUSD APYs thrived during the USDC depeg, reaching an average of over 40% APY during the 2nd week of March.
We built Origin Dollar knowing that stablecoins can be volatile. Thanks to the protocol’s robust security, OUSD remains operational even under the most long-tail conditions. Whenever a Chainlink oracle shows a stablecoin’s price below $0.998, Origin Dollar stops accepting the token as collateral.
In terms of redemptions, OUSD protects the vault by sending proportional amounts of USDC, USDT, and DAI to redeemers, preventing the vault to be drained in the event of a depeg. Upon redemption, OUSD charges a .25% fee that is sent to OUSD holders. Pairing this with profits from pricing protections, Origin Dollar holders came out in the green, earning boosted yield directly to their wallets.
The stablecoin volatility in March further proves Origin Dollar’s commitment to security and robust infrastructure in place to protect user funds.
Before diving into the details, let’s take a look at what Origin Protocol accomplished in March. Origin Story and Origin Dollar made waves with new marketplaces launches, higher APYs, new exchange listings, and governance proposals.
Here’s a birds-eye view of what happened at Origin in March 2023:
As Blur and Opensea compete for dominance at the expense of creators, Origin Story has an opportunity to cement itself as the creator-first marketplace platform for decentralized commerce. As such, OGN holders have passed 2 proposals: a proposal to forgo all marketplace transaction fees until June 1, 2023, and a proposal to subsidize OGN staking over the same timeframe.
In tandem with these proposals, Origin Story’s core team now offers free marketplace set up for a limited time. As creators seek to take back control of their web3 businesses, Origin has received dozens of new inbounds from NFT projects looking for a white label marketplace solution. We believe that now is the time to position Origin Story for growth, rather than short-term revenue.
Eventually, Origin Story aims to become permissionless, so every creator can harness the protocol’s toolset for their own NFT ecosystem.
Last week, Origin Story launched Eternals NFT marketplace. The marketplace has just added support for Omni Guards, the brand’s latest mint that launched on 3/31. We’re also gearing up to launch a marketplace with a 90s viral brand entering the GameFi space––stay tuned on April 4th to learn more.
Origin Story aims to create the most seamless experience for NFT transactions so that everyone can participate in the cryptoeconomy. This is why we partnered with Crossmint to offer credit card purchases earlier this year. This month, Origin Story saw many partners add support for this feature, including 0N1 Force, Karafuru, The Doge Pound, Sad Times, and others.
If you follow Origin Story on Twitter, you may have seen us tease Origin’s Royalties Leaderboard. The leaderboard tracks the top payers of royalties for each collection, gamifying the experience to incentivize holders to support creators. Origin’s Royalties Leaderboard will roll out to partner marketplaces soon, and a corresponding incentive program will launch soon after.
Were you holding OUSD the day it earned 198% APY? It happened last month!
Thanks to Origin Dollar’s security measures and collateral allocations, the stablecoin performed considerably well during the USDC depeg. Holders earned boosted rewards from increased trading, protocol fees, and smart rebalancing. Let’s take a look at what Origin Dollar did to preserve its capital and earn a 13.1% trailing APY over the last 30 days.
First, Origin Dollar’s collateral remained secure during the USDC depeg. As previously mentioned, the Origin Dollar protocol temporarily halts minting OUSD with any stablecoin that falls below $0.998. While there was a proposal to swap out of USDC during the depeg, the proposal was vetoed, as it would have realized losses for OUSD holders.
OUSD holders were generously rewarded for holding the stablecoin through the market volatility. During the week of the USDC depeg, OUSD earned more than 40% APY over the trailing 7-days. Almost unbelievably, the peak day for OUSD APYs peaked above 190%. These sharp increases in rewards have boosted Origin Dollar APYs to average 13% in the month of March.
The Origin Dollar team presented at various conferences this month to spread the word about OUSD. Origin’s co-founder Josh Fraser presented on Origin Dollar Governance at ETHDenver. Taking over the DAO stage, Josh spoke on the vote-escrow token model initially pioneered by Curve Finance, and how Origin Dollar improved upon it. Additionally, Origin Dollar’s Head of BD Andra Nicolau presented at IWB2023 earlier this month, and she wrapped up March by taking over the stage at NFT Miami.
The OGV-ETH Curve pool has boosted APYs, increasing liquidity and trading volume for the token.
OGV liquidity providers on Curve saw a huge boost to OGV rewards this month thanks to increased Curve emissions from the Curve Gauge Controller. The OGV-ETH pool on Curve now offers up to 50% APY for liquidity providers, making it one of the most appealing pools currently available. As such, the OGV-ETH Curve pool has grown in TVL, allowing for more liquidity and increased trading through the AMM.
The 80% of OGV that’s staked for OUSD governance also saw increased protocol revenue in March. As a reminder, the OUSD Protocol takes a 10% fee on Origin Dollar yield, which is then used to buy back OGV and distribute yield to veOGV holders. In March alone, protocol revenue for Origin Dollar nearly surpassed $200,000––OUSD’s highest monthly revenue in nearly a year!
We added 2 to our team this month with a new Full-Stack Engineer and Social Media Manager.
We’re excited to add a new full-stack engineer to Origin’s team this month: Scott Mitchell. Scott joins us with a wealth of engineering experience from working at NASA and PayPal, as well as at high-growth technology startups. While only being with Origin for a few weeks, Scott has led our OUSD analytics revamp, improved Origin’s user experience, and has helped to align our codebase with our underlying application infrastructure.
In the same month, Origin welcomed a familiar face to our core team: Maddie Suppa. Maddie has worked with Origin for nearly a year, wearing hats as a copywriter, community manager, and social media lead. We’re thrilled to have Maddie join us on our core team, where she’ll oversee the growth of all three of our Twitter accounts: Origin Protocol, Origin Story, and OUSD. If you’re in our discord or follow us on other social platforms, you’ll surely see Maddie’s work there too!
As always, we’re on the hunt for top talent and passionate builders in web3. Our team hails from diverse backgrounds scaling iconic tech companies, with many of our team members being serial-entrepreneurs themselves. While we’ve recently filled many roles for Origin Dollar and Origin Story, we’re still searching for the right person to take on:
Think you got what it takes? Shoot us a message in our Discord, or apply directly through our job listing.
Origin made tons of announcements in March, so no sweat if you missed anything. The most mysterious of all announcements, however, was OETH. What is OETH? Well, you’ll need to stay tuned to our Twitter. If you’re really curious to learn more, we’re building OETH publicly in our Discord. But enough speculation on the future––here’s some further reading on our past announcements:
Want to get in touch with us to launch your NFT marketplace? Hit us up at [email protected] to get in touch with our team!
We’re excited to announce that Mattias Suppa has joined Origin to turbocharge our social media efforts!
A diehard crypto native with an insatiable passion for learning, Maddie decided to enter Web3 after obtaining her Master’s degree in Psychology. Informed by her studies and a keen interest in human behavior, Maddie is tremendously excited by the power of narratives and the unique dynamics of crypto’s online culture.
“What makes me most excited about the space is the innovation that happens on a daily basis”, she explains. “I’m thrilled to be able to contribute with my knowledge, creativity and passion and continue learning more every day. I also truly value the way the space has emphasized community and made it easier for us to feel connected to one another.”
Maddie’s been involved in the space since 2019, working as a copywriter, researcher, and community manager supporting web3 projects across the spectrum. Maddie’s welcoming and inclusive vision for mass adoption prompted her to start a group for women in Web3, where she honed her strategic expertise.
She’s kept her finger on the beating pulse of crypto since entering the space, diving headfirst into DeFi and NFTs as the sectors began to emerge.
Maddie has been working with Origin as a copywriter and social media lead since April 2022. Her unparalleled work ethic and passion for DeFi and NFTs has played a vital role in Origin’s marketing success. As Social Media Coordinator, Maddie is now spearheading campaigns and strategy across Origin’s online channels.
On joining Origin in her new capacity, Maddie shares her infectious enthusiasm. “Origin’s team is full of some of the greatest minds a person could hope to learn from in this space,” she affirms. “I truly believe in Origin’s mission and what we are building, and want to use my background, skills, and dedication to be a part of bringing this vision to life. ”
In the rare moments that she isn’t active on-chain, Maddie enjoys training, honing her photography skills, trying new food, and spending time with her family.
Please join us in welcoming Maddie to Origin as Social Media Coordinator!
We’re excited to announce that veteran crypto native Ariel Meranus is joining Origin to drive Product Management efforts for Origin Story.
Having bought her first bitcoin in 2013, Ariel has recognized the disruptive potential of crypto for almost a decade. She’s been a strong proponent of Ethereum since discovering smart contracts in 2016 and has worked with a laser focus on driving further adoption and innovation in the space.
From crafting best in class digital experiences at digital think tank L2, to developing an educational crypto newsletter, Ariel is a die-hard crypto and NFT evangelist with a passion for mass adoption.
Ariel joins us from white label NFT marketplace Giglabs. During her tenure as Director of Product she worked with the likes of Dapper Labs and CNN to turbocharge the platform’s growth. Transferring her knowledge to Origin Story, Ariel now leads product development efforts for our white label NFT platform.
Ariel is tremendously excited by the vast potential of NFTs to disrupt everything from music and fashion to real world assets, making the decision to join Origin an easy one. She’s also been impressed by the team’s work culture and proven tracord.
Ariel’s insatiable curiosity and passion for learning extends well beyond crypto. During her 4 years as a digital nomad, she lived and worked in over 30 countries!
When she’s not blazing fresh trails of disruption, you can find Ariel skiing, hiking, and generally conquering the great outdoors.
Please join us in welcoming Ariel to the Origin team!
The veToken model was pioneered by Curve Finance, allowing people to lock their CRV tokens in exchange for governance power and economic incentives. Users have the option to lock tokens anywhere from 1 week to 4 years, with increased voting power the longer tokens are locked.
This mechanism has allowed the protocol to transfer voting and economic power to the people who are long-term invested in the protocol, chasing away short-term profit maximalists, potential governance exploiters, and mercenary capital. The model became incredibly popular, copied by Balancer, Frax, dYdX, and other DeFi protocols.
What’s not commonly done by these protocols, however, is improving on the veToken contracts instead of simply copy and pasting them for their own use. With the launch of OUSD’s governance token, Origin has taken the opportunity to improve veToken contracts for better user experience and less technical complexity, benefitting the entire DeFi space with its open-source code.
Firstly, Origin rewrote the veToken contract in Solidity instead of Vyper, allowing for easier integration for DeFi protocols and Origin Protocol itself. Then, Origin focused on making the contract itself less code heavy and more gas efficient. This meant fundamentally changing how stakers’ voting power was calculated.
The original veToken contract implemented linear voting power decay, preventing governance attacks from stakers that could exit their position soon. Though it was an innovative mechanism, it required lots of on-chain calculations and writes, resulting in increased gas costs.
Whenever voting power is required in a calculation, contracts on Curve have to calculate each staker’s voting power based on each individual’s linear decay at a certain checkpoint, taking into consideration each decay’s past, current, and future slopes. By changing the model to exponential decay, Origin could simply express each individual’s staking power as a flat percentage, eliminating the need for complex on-chain calculations, resulting in lower gas fees.
Furthermore, Origin changed decay to dilution, increasing tokens of new stakers instead of reducing existing stakers’ tokens. This allowed the number of votes for existing stakers to remain the same, but still reduce their overall weight in governance, making it compatible with Snapshot voting.
Essentially, Origin made veToken calculations simpler and less code intensive, reducing gas costs by 20% to 51%, and allowing easier integrations into other DeFi applications.
Origin also made improvements to voter delegations, flexibility of locks, and rewards distribution.
Enabling veOGV holders to transfer voting power allows them to delegate to trusted persons in the Origin ecosystem, encouraging higher governance participation. Stakers will also have the option of delegating to a hot wallet, increasing convenience while maintaining security.
veOGV holders can also opt to have multiple locks of differing periods in the same wallet, unlike Curve’s model which required all locks be the same duration. And instead of separating the rewards contract, Origin simply built in rewards distribution to the staking contract.
Due to the exponential decay, veOGV stakers will be left with residual voting power even after their lock up ends. Stakers will also receive exponentially more units of veOGV than their amount staked, and users voting power will not be reduced until someone else stakes.
As mentioned before, OGV has adopted the veToken model, allowing users to stake OGV in exchange for veOGV. These stakers receive performance fees from OUSD yield strategies, generating a variable 31.33% APY for stakers. With the optimized veToken contract, OGV has attracted a high staking participation rate, locking 78.51% of all circulating supply.
By building next-generation models of stablecoins and veTokens, Origin has innovated and pushed forward the frontiers of DeFi. OUSD allows anyone with an internet connection and a computer to access high-yielding passive income strategies, while veOGV’s open-source code allows other DeFi protocols to utilize a battle-tested gas optimized version of the veToken model.
Join the world-class ecosystem by acquiring OUSD or staking OGV today.
We’re excited to announce that spot margin trading of Origin Protocol’s native token OGN is now available on Huobi. Founded in 2013, Huobi regularly records over $1B in daily trading volume across more than 800 digital asset pairs.
Huobi already supports spot trading for OGN/BTC, OGN/USDT, and OGV/USDT. Users will now be able to trade OGN on margin, which supports up to 3x leverage.
This feature offers far more flexibility for traders of OGN. Traders can utilize the margin function to increase their OGN exposure or free up additional capital.
Please note that while margin trading may increase profits, using leverage also carries increased risks of liquidation. Traders interested in learning more about margin trading can check out Huobi’s educational resources to gain a better understanding.
From March 15th until March 22nd, Origin has partnered with Huobi to give away $3,000 worth of OGN to those that trade on Huobi's platform. The winner who trades the most volume earns 3,000 OGN, while everyone who participates earns a prize in OGN!
For more details on the OGN trading competition, check out Huobi's announcement on OGN spot-margin trading.
Origin Protocol Token (OGN) serves as the value-accrual token for the protocol’s innovative NFT product, Origin Story.
Story powers over a dozen premiere NFT collections with cutting-edge branded marketplaces that smoothly integrate into partners’ native ecosystems. All of Story’s marketplaces feature aggregated listings, custom branding, and feature-rich analytics dashboards designed for each project.
100% of Story’s platform fees are distributed to OGN stakers, emphasizing Origin’s unerring commitment to decentralization. Season 3 of OGN staking is now live.
We are pleased to announce the addition of Scott Mitchell to Origin’s world-class team!
Scott brings with him 15 years of experience as Web2 and Web3 software engineer, working in renowned organisations such as PayPal and NASA, as well as in the trenches with startups! Scott’s professional history in a variety of industries such as cybersecurity, govtech, ecommerce, and IoT demonstrates his flexibility and ability to learn new concepts. Bundled together with his love for organized chaos and the speed of product development in startups, it is no surprise Scott naturally gravitated towards Web3 in 2017.
In late 2020, Scott started to work heavily in the NFT space across different chains, including Ethereum, Polygon, and Flow, building out analytics and utility oriented NFT projects. Naturally, he came across Origin Story due to our prominence in the NFT space.
Origin’s products, Story and OUSD, immediately resonated with Scott’s love of building innovative products and compelled him to approach us. With his skills, experience, and passion, we believe that Scott will help Origin continue to push the frontiers of Web3, helping create a new ecosystem of web applications for everyone.
Aside from launching rockets and building startups, Scott is an avid gamer and family man. He enjoys playing tennis, spending time with his wife and kids, and playing games like csgo and Valorant. When asked what drew him to Origin, Scott told us, “I've been searching for an organization that deeply understands the web3 space. Origin hits the mark on all fronts.”
Please join us in welcoming Scott to the Origin team!
Every month, the Origin team publishes an update to our token holders and the broader community. We hope you enjoy our February 2023 edition.
New Story marketplaces, app integrations, and a Bitfinex listing. Check out what we did last month.
The cryptocurrency markets showed a breath of resurgence in February, with OGN and OGV being no exception. Thanks to new partnerships and utility for Origin Dollar, OGV has seen increased interest both within DeFi and across social media. Adding to the hype, ownership of the OUSD protocol transitioned away from our multi-sig, giving OGV holders control of the OUSD governance contract. We’re also excited to see more integrations developed through apps building on top of Origin Dollar – this time around the integration is with Archimedes Finance, a leverage app for OUSD yield.
Origin Story launched new marketplaces in February, including The Alien Boy and Kiwami’s official storefronts. Our new partners and their collectors can now enjoy aggregated listings, advanced NFT analytics, and bespoke storefronts through their new white label marketplaces.
As for OGN, the token is now listed on Bitfinex! Bitfinex is the last major exchange that OGN was yet to be listed on, gaining access to millions of new users through the platform. Alongside the Bitfinex listing, Origin Story is being promoted through Bitfinex’s Learn and Earn campaign. As the campaign is still ongoing, be sure to participate on Bitfinex to earn up to 4,000 OGN for completing the Origin Protocol quiz.
Before we dive into the details, let’s take a look at what Origin Protocol was up to last month.
In February:
There was a UFO sighting over Origin’s headquarters. The Alien Boys ended up being friendly. 👽
Honoring creator revenues was a widely contested topic in February. Blur and Opensea are now competing at the expense of creators, reducing previously-honored creator royalties. Royalties are the primary avenue for NFT projects to generate revenue, and Origin Story believes that enforcing creator royalties is vital for both creators and their collections. Now more than ever, NFT collections are looking to host their own storefronts to take control over their hard-earned royalties.
In light of the marketplace wars, creators have turned to Origin Story to build their storefronts. Our partners at Roo Troop recently announced that they will block all other marketplaces besides its Origin Story storefront in order to take control over creator royalties. Not only does this benefit Roo Troop, but OGN stakers will see increased rewards from the collection’s sales thanks to increased trading volume.
Origin is thrilled to partner with new collections in February, launching marketplaces for The Alien Boy and Kiwami. Kiwami is a leader in storytelling NFTs, creating multiple manga-based collections that are now aggregated on its Origin Story marketplace.
Launched in June 2021, The Alien Boy was among the first NFT collections to emerge from NFT summer. The project is a pioneer in generative 3D-models, and its collections boasts 4 unique collections and a multitude of notable holders. Alongside its official marketplace, Origin Story hosts a bespoke NFT analytics dashboard showing community metrics and sales data.
Origin Story seeks to make NFTs accessible to everyone. While not to undermine its importance, self-custody and crypto payments present barriers for users in their current forms. We’re excited to have integrated with Crossmint, a fiat-payment and wallet provider that streamlines NFT ownership. Users can now purchase NFTs from the Pudgy Penguins marketplace using a credit card, and more marketplace integrations are slated to roll out soon.
Last but not least, we’re thrilled to have OGN listed on Bitfinex! Founded in 2012, Bitfinex is an early innovator in crypto exchanges, facilitating hundreds of millions of dollars in daily volume. OGN trading commenced on February 13th, while Origin’s Learn and Earn campaign is ongoing for the next week. Users can find the Learn and Earn campaign on Bitfinex where they can earn OGN based on their quiz scores – the highest score wins 4,000 OGN (if you’re reading this, you’ll probably score well!)
Hit the polls! The OUSD protocol is now owned and governed by OGV stakers.
Origin Dollar made huge strides in February by transitioning its protocol ownership from a multisig wallet to OGV stakers. Origin Dollar Governance (OGV) holders can vote weekly on allocations for its yield strategies, future DeFi integrations, and other upgrades to the Origin Dollar contract. We expect OUSD governance to continuously become more decentralized as new holders and DAOs begin participating in Origin Dollar governance.
We’re constantly exploring new DeFi strategies for Origin Dollar internally, but in the month of February, a novel DeFi protocol called Archimedes Finance introduced a fresh use case for OUSD. Archimedes Finance lets users take on leverage with stablecoins, using Origin Dollar to generate boosted yields. If you’re interested in leveraging OUSD to earn up to 33% APY, visit the Archimedes Finance dapp. As Archimedes is a new protocol built by an external team, be sure to do your own research before leveraging your OUSD.
As new, leverage-seeking users deposit into Archimedes Finance, its smart contract swaps DAI, USDC, and USDT into Origin Dollar, increasing the total value locked for the OUSD protocol.
In light of counterparty risk exemplified by CeFi in 2022, DAOs are seeking transparent, risk-averse yields through self-custody. Origin Dollar continues to have fruitful conversations with DAOs to onboard Origin Dollar to their treasuries. This month, Popcorn DAO converted $2 million USDC into OUSD to earn yield for its treasury; the proposal was first announced in January’s token holder update. Also this month, Origin Dollar has had ongoing calls with Rook, the leading MEV marketplace. You can get up to speed on our conversations with Rook on the Rook Forum, and make sure to stay tuned to our Twitter for when the on-chain proposal goes live.
OGN Season 2 Staking is now locked, and Season 3 starts March 9th. Nearly 80% of all OGV is locked in staking.
Both OGN and OGV saw another month in the green as the broader crypto market saw a resurgence. Thanks to increased liquidity through Curve, trading volume significantly increased for Origin Dollar Governance (OGV) in February. In turn, OGV saw a price appreciation around 25% over the last 30-days, while OGN has appreciated nearly 15% in the same timeframe.
As always, Origin Story disburses 100% of its marketplace revenue to the OGN staking rewards pool. OGN Season 2 Staking is now locked, and stakers can claim their rewards in the form of ETH and OGN starting on March 9th. Stakers have 30 days to claim their rewards – all unclaimed rewards will rollover into the Season 3 rewards pool.
Season 3 of OGN Staking commences directly after Season 2 ends on March 9th. However, those with unstaked OGN can pre-stake their tokens in Season 3 today. This is important because staking rewards are based on points earned during Season 3. Points take into account both time staked and amount of tokens, so those who stake from the get-go can claim the most rewards at the end of the season.
As a reminder, OGV buybacks are executed on a recurring basis with revenue generated from the OUSD protocol. As shown in the chart above, buybacks for Origin Dollar Governance continue to grow, and nearly 15 million tokens have already been bought back.
In effort to remain the most transparent way to earn interest on stablecoins, Origin Dollar hosts a robust data analytics dashboard for users to monitor strategy allocations, backing, user activity, and buybacks. OUSD remains fully collateralized by leading stablecoins DAI, USDC, and USDT. The most utilized protocols for earning yield over the last month were Curve, Convex, and Aave, with a portion of these funds being routed through the Morpho Aave and Morpho Compound strategies.
A product leader from an NFT platform serving top global brands joined Origin this month.
Please join us in welcoming Ariel Meranus as Origin Story’s Senior Product Manager! Ariel comes from a background in Product strategy, holding related roles at consulting and technology firms for over a decade. Prior to joining Origin, Ariel served as the Director of Product for GigLabs, an NFT solutions provider that works to bring brands like NBA, NFL, and American Airlines into web3 via NFTs.
As always, we’re on the hunt for top talent and passionate builders in web3. Our team hails from diverse backgrounds in big tech and blockchain, with many of our team members being serial-entrepreneurs themselves. While we’ve recently filled many roles for Origin Dollar and Origin Story, we’re still searching for the right person to take on:
Think you got what it takes? Shoot us a message in our Discord, or apply directly through our job listing.
We had a lot to shout about in February, and some of it may have gotten lost on your Twitter feed. To stay up to date with everything Origin Protocol, be sure to turn our Tweet notifications on, 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!
In crypto, every user or holder is their own bank. Though this means that users have total control and freedom over how they use their assets, they are also responsible for its security. Coupled with the fact that the general public does not have strong cyber hygiene, this results in a vulnerability that hackers are more than willing to exploit. We have seen this ring true, especially on NFT collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club. Even more sophisticated investors like Kevin Rose were successfully phished.
So how do users protect themselves, and what are some best practices when handling crypto?
The first step to securing crypto assets is to use a hardware wallet instead of desktop or mobile wallet. Hardware wallets ensure that the ability to sign and approve transactions is fully isolated in a separate physical device, making it harder for a hacker to access potential victims’ crypto assets.
Before you sign a transaction, your private key is used to decrypt the transaction data encrypted by your public key. The private key is then used to sign and encrypt the transaction, which is verified by miners or validators by using your public key to decrypt it. These keys are generated by your seed phrase, which is stored offline on the Ledger.
Think of your private and public keys like two secret agents that made up their own communication code. Only they can encode and decode their messages to each other.
To further enhance the security of your seed phrase, Ledgers are protected by Secure Element Chips, which ensures the seed phrase cannot be physically compromised when stolen. Ledger’s software also ensures transactions are signed within the device itself, making it tamper-proof from any third-party applications.
Yes. It is recommended that anyone holding significant amounts in OUSD use a Ledger or hardware wallet. Basic functions such as sending, receiving, and earning yield on OUSD are enabled in the native Ledger Live app.
If you would like to purchase OUSD via the OUSD application or decentralized exchanges such as Curve and Uniswap, you would have to connect your Ledger to Metamask first.
Please note that you do not key in your Ledger’s seed phrase into Metamask or any other sites. Your seed phrase should never be used outside of the Ledger.
Securing your private keys through an isolated setup is the most crucial step. However, proper cyber hygiene should still be maintained at all times. Malware, third party applications, or even phishing websites may trick users into signing malicious transactions. Always check the website you are doing transactions on and avoid downloading untrusted files.
I am unable to see transactions on my Ledger when using Metamask
Blind signing is usually required when interacting with smart contracts. Please enable it by following Ledger’s tutorial.
Can I buy OUSD on a centralized exchange and send it to my wallet?
Yes. OUSD is available on cryptocurrency exchanges Kucoin and Gate. You can withdraw OUSD to your wallet after purchasing it on those platforms.
How does OUSD earn yield?
OUSD earns yield by deploying stablecoins into strategies involving blue-chip DeFi protocols such as Aave, Compound, Curve, and Convex. These strategies are carefully and rigorously reviewed and audited by in-house engineers and external auditing firms. All strategies are market neutral, and do not take speculative or directional risks.
