Every month, the Origin team publishes an update to our token holders and the broader community. We hope you enjoy our January 2023 edition.
January featured major updates to Origin Story, DAO adoption for OUSD, and experimental new products stemming from our inaugural innovation week.
From Polygon support on Story marketplaces to new partnerships for OUSD, we’ve hit the ground running in 2023. Story’s broad feature expansion this month is in preparation for the new marketplace partners joining us in Q1, but you’ll need to stay tuned for February’s token holder update for the scoop on that.
To expand our toolset for Story and OUSD, Origin kicked off the new year with innovation week: a 5-day hackathon where our team built over a dozen new prototypes. We’ve publicly launched our NFT Compare tool, one of the many products born out of innovation week. Excitingly, we’ve garnered partner interest from FairTix, another innovation week product that allows for fair distributions of tickets via community auctions and lotteries. Aside from data analytics and ticketing, we’re excited for our new prototypes pertaining to NFT wash trading, no-loss stablecoin lotteries, and an NFT buy button for external sites.
As for all that happened this month, here’s a short list of January 2023’s highlights. We’ll dive deeper into these developments in each respective section.
In January:
Here’s the scoop on our January 2023 highlights.
Origin Story 💜 Polygon
As we prepare to onboard more strategic marketplace partners to Origin Story, we’ve improved the platform’s feature set to support new use cases for NFTs across various industries. In order to accrue the most value to OGN holders, we believe casting a wide net––far beyond profile picture collections––lays the groundwork for capturing new market share. Excitingly, we’re seeing real estate platforms, entertainment companies, and fashion brands enter web3 at breakneck speeds.
We’ve built Story with an emphasis on inclusivity and frictionless transactions––it’s clear to us that leveraging Ethereum scaling technologies is necessary to reach our goal of onboarding the next 100 million users to crypto. This month, we’ve added support for Polygon on Story marketplaces, allowing existing and future partners to add their Polygon NFT collections to Origin Story. As many of our existing partners already use Polygon for secondary collections, adding this support will create a more holistic experience on our white label marketplaces.
Polygon supports Reddit, Meta, Disney, Stripe, and many other industry behemoths in their web3 endeavors. We expect more brands to launch their web3 strategy on Polygon, which is why we’ve added the network on Story marketplaces. As non-fungible tokens enter the mainstream, more networks will be necessary to support broad use cases––and we’re prepared to support them.
In order to provide unique utility for NFT collectors directly from Origin Story, we’ve added token-gated access across our partner marketplaces. We first tested this feature with Roofstock onChain, adding functionality for KYC through soulbound token-gated access. After this successful launch, it became clear our partners can benefit from integrating their holder-only benefits within our white label marketplaces.
We were Swift to make a ticketing platform, dove deeper into NFT analytics, and made purchasing NFTs even easier.
Since day one, our branded marketplaces have served users with advanced analytics, aggregating data across all major NFT platforms. Alongside data aggregation, Story supports community analytics, showing the largest and most influential holders of each collection. We’re excited to announce our latest tool: NFT Compare. NFT Compare lets collectors view side-by-side data to compare collection volumes, prices, and sales. Uniquely, NFT Compare allows users to easily view holder overlap between collections, allowing investors to make more informed decisions on NFT purchases.
Origin creates the infrastructure necessary for collectors, real-estate investors, music fans, and beyond to venture into web3. We continually look for new ways to solve pain points for our diverse partners and their communities. By broadening our NFT toolset, our partners are enabled to find ways to utilize tokenization in never-before-seen ways.
Our NFT Compare tool was one of the many products developed during innovation week. During the span of just 5 days, our team created an NFT ticketing platform, a wash trading identifier, and several other prototypes in the realm of NFTs and DeFi.
Our NFT ticketing platform FairTix has already received interest from creators, and we’re scheduling demos for prospective partners to showcase the prototype’s unique offering. FairTix allows artists and creators to host community auctions and lotteries, improving the way tickets are sold and eliminating bots from scalping tickets from loyal fans.
Inline with our analytics platform, Rinse was developed during innovation week to paint a clear picture of legitimate NFT trading. Rinse identifies wash traded NFTs, allowing prospective buyers to view which NFTs, collections, and wallets engage in wash trading.
Lastly, our NFT buy button offers our partners a way to highlight NFTs listed for sale and grants users the ability to acquire NFTs directly from partner websites. Partner collections with NFT galleries can integrate the buy button within them, adding listing data and purchase capabilities without needing to visit an NFT marketplace.
Get your popcorn out. OUSD can now be leveraged up to 10x via Archimedes Finance.
Leveraging the largest DeFi apps, self-custody, and instant liquidity, Origin Dollar is the glaringly clear solution for DAO treasury management. This month, PopcornDAO passed PIP-14 to add over $2 million of OUSD to its treasury. Holding OUSD allows Popcorn to earn passive yield through Aave, Compound, Curve, Convex, and Morpho without giving up custody of its assets.
While our long-term goal remains to create a ubiquitous yield-bearing stablecoin for retail and institutional users, Origin’s focus on DAO integrations has aided in growing Origin Dollar’s TVL at a time when new retail interest in digital assets remains low.
We also saw increased institutional support for OUSD this month. Both Qredo and Fireblocks will now support Origin Dollar and its yield-generating functions. Fireblocks is the leading provider for institutional digital asset custody, securing the transfer of over $3 trillion of digital assets. Similarly, Qredo is a decentralized custody solution that provides instant cross-chain settlement for traders and money managers.
Also this month, Origin submitted an Aave Ethereum V3 proposal to add support for Origin Dollar on Aave’s latest Ethereum mainnet iteration. Aave V3 support will open up new liquidity for OUSD holders and give investors the opportunity to lend and borrow OUSD through Aave V3.
We firmly believe that DeFi and NFTs reach their greatest potential when used as money legos. This month, Origin Dollar solidified its partnership with Archimedes Finance. OUSD holders will be able to access up to 10x leverage through Archimedes, allowing them to boost their Origin Dollar yield. Due to the ability to customize leverage on Archimedes, all positions are represented as NFTs. Users can redeem the NFTs for their underlying collateral or trade these NFTs on secondary marketplaces.
Origin Dollar is the first stablecoin to launch with Archimedes. As such, we expect leverage-seeking users to join the OUSD ecosystem. This bodes well for OGV, as the protocol will capture new revenue streams through the Origin Dollar yield accrued on Archimedes Finance. This is the first instance of a leveraged yield-bearing stablecoin, allowing for greater capital efficiency and impressive yield generation. Due to Origin Dollar’s stable price, the risk of liquidation is much lower than traditional leverage on digital assets.
Our Origin Dollar Governance (OGV) dashboard also got an overhaul this month. Users can now view OGV analytics on ousd.com. The new OGV dashboard highlights OGV price action, staking APYs (currently over 54%), market capitalization, and supply metrics. In line with our commitment to transparency, users can also see OGV allocations on our analytics dashboard.
In December, OGV governance passed a new strategy to onboard the LUSD Convex Strategy to Origin Dollar. The strategy has run smoothly since launch, generating compelling yield in tandem with our other liquidity provision and lending strategies. Congruent with our values of transparency and security, we’ve published an in-depth risk assessment on the LUSD Convex strategy.
OGN Season 2 staking will be locked soon. OGV staking now yields 54.33% variable APY.
As a refresher, all platform revenue from Origin Story is sent to the OGN staking pool and is distributed proportionally to those who stake OGN. While there is still over a month left for Season 2, staking will be locked on February 6th. Staked OGN will continue to accrue rewards until March 8th, when rewards become claimable in the form of ether and OGN. OGN Season 3 staking will commence directly after Season 2 ends––be sure to stake your tokens at the beginning of Season 3 to accrue the maximum rewards for the season.
With over 10% of OGN staked in Season 2, circulating supply is significantly reduced. Moreover, OGN emissions are running behind schedule, meaning the token is less inflationary than what was initially modeled. We do not anticipate any near-term catalysts to impact our token emissions, so we expect to continue pacing behind schedule in this regard.
Inline with the market resurgence this month, OGN has appreciated 42% month-to-date. While token appreciation is good for everyone, we remain focused on expanding Origin’s fundamental value through new marketplace partnerships and strategic value accrual functions for OGN. Aside from profile picture collections, our current partnership focus includes titans in the real estate, fashion, and entertainment industries.
The recent market resurgence comes at a time when the FED is signaling tapering rate hikes, and investors are reacting by becoming more risk-on. This has a compound effect for Origin Dollar and Origin Dollar Governance (OGV). DeFi yields are expected to increase in a risk-on environment. OUSD would then earn higher DeFi yields while OGV holders earn more protocol revenue.
Origin Dollar Governance (OGV) is the value accrual and governance token for OUSD. Over 78% of OGV is currently staked, and those who stake are earning 54.3% APY on their tokens. Origin Dollar takes 10% of the yield earned through its collateral and distributes this to OGV stakers––and Origin Dollar recently surpassed $4M in protocol revenue!
We had a lot to shout about in January, 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!
Everything begins with an idea.
Origin’s team kicked off the new year with Innovation Week: a 5-day hackathon where our entire team created new, innovative products that have the potential to be integrated into Origin Story and Origin Dollar.
In the span of just 5 days, Origin’s team developed 15 new prototypes for unique products that could benefit both Origin’s community and the crypto industry as a whole. Below are the top 6 prototypes that emerged from Origin’s innovation week.
As a reminder, these products are still prototypes, and we don’t recommend visiting these sites until/if they become publicly available. If you find any products below particularly interesting, we encourage your feedback in our Discord!
NFT analytics are often siloed, making it hard for investors to see the full picture before making a decision to buy an NFT. Beyond simple volume and price metrics, NFT statistics are few and far between. We’re excited to launch our NFT Compare Tool––the first product of innovation week slated for public access.
The NFT Compare Tool shows average volume, price, and sales statistics for two NFT collections side by side. This allows collectors to easily compare key metrics between collections and make informed decisions before purchasing digital assets. One of the most unique metrics featured on the NFT Compare Tool is holder overlap, showing how many users hold assets between two collections. Holder overlap proved useful to predict future mint distributions, such as Yuga Labs’ Sewer Passes that were distributed to users based on the assets they hold.
Brought to light after the launch of LooksRare, NFT wash trading now accounts for over half of all NFT volume. Unfortunately, NFT marketplaces don’t filter out data pertaining to wash traded tokens. This transaction data can be deceiving––most NFT trading history is made up of illegitimate transactions, causing certain NFTs to appear more popular than they really are.
Rinse aims to bring clarity to collectors in regards to wash traded NFTs. The analytics platform gives an overview of aggregate NFT wash trading, pulling on-chain data across all top NFT marketplaces. The Rinse dashboard shows the cumulative number of suspicious transactions, percentage of suspicious trades, total ETH volume from washed NFTs, and the percentage of total NFT volume that is attributed to wash trading.
Arguably even more interesting, Rinse.io allows users to view specific NFTs and collections. This is helpful for identifying whether or not a specific NFT has been wash traded, allowing collectors to distinguish between real and illegitimate token sales.
FairTix was created in response to the inefficiencies currently plaguing the entertainment industry. Evidenced by Taylor Swift’s latest tour, value is extracted out of artists’ fan bases by ticket scalpers, pricing out true fans from attending the most sought after concerts.
The platform is a community ecosystem and next-generation ticketing system. The dapp lets artists host lotteries or auction off NFT tickets, allowing for a more fair distribution of tickets than what’s currently offered by legacy ticketing companies. Moreover, FairTix solves the problem of bot usage by using KYC-style verification to ensure tickets are sold to real users.
Using web3 for ticket sales offers up the opportunity for artists and fans to mutually benefit. Artists could now receive secondary royalties from ticket resellers, or they could eliminate reselling altogether through the use of soulbound tokens. Buyers can rest assured knowing that their tickets are indeed legit.
Ella is the bank that pays your subscriptions. The prototype was built by Andra, Origin Dollar’s Head of Business Development. Ahead of development, Andra researched the need for high-yield, accessible savings products, oriented towards women looking to take control of their finances. She found that over 8 million women make over $100,000 per year, yet most of this group is earning less than 1% APY on their savings.
Out of those surveyed, the median amount held in savings accounts is $10,000. Those with $10,000 in savings could earn ~$400 per year through OUSD––enough to cover most users’ subscriptions. With fiat onramps, layer 2 support, and account abstraction on Ella’s roadmap, the startup aims to be an accessible entry point to crypto for new users who may be unfamiliar with the technology.
Ella seeks to make the benefit of high yield easy to understand and accessible to everyone. The bank aims to earn yield through OUSD, and it uses Treasury Bonds as a safety net in case Origin Dollar Yields dip below these yields. As OUSD earns interest, the bank would automatically pay for users’ subscriptions. In order to cover these costs, Ella would require a minimum balance which is variable dependent on one’s subscription expenses.
Stolen.fyi is “Literally the worst dapp.”
This may be the prototype that NFT degens and Yolo traders find the most interesting. Stolen.fyi is a simple game, innovating on NFT dynamics to create the world’s most fun, decentralized Ponzi scheme. Users can mint NFTs representing their favorite Twitter accounts, but there’s no guarantee that their NFTs won’t get stolen…
But don’t worry, if it gets stolen, you’ll end up making a profit. Stolen.fyi is the ultimate non-compliant, up-only degen money game. Initial Twitter handles are free to mint––wouldn’t you like to own Elon’s, POTUS, or Vitalik’s Twitter handle? Choose wisely, as you’ll only be able to hold three usernames at a time.
Anyone can steal a minted NFT for 0.01 ETH. Afterwards, users can steal the NFT for twice what the last user paid for it. This makes the game “up-only,” but be sure not to be the greater fool! You can’t sell your NFT for a loss, and it’s not possible to list these assets on other marketplaces. You’re stuck with your assets until someone, dumber than yourself, steals them from you. Want your NFT back? You’ll have to buy it.
OUSD Win is for degens with a charitable side.
The dapp lets users stake their OUSD in a no-loss lottery. As the pool accrues interest from OUSD yields, the potential winnings grow larger. Two lucky winners will split the funds in the rewards pool, with the remaining half of the accrued interest being donated to a nonprofit each week. The winnings in the pool are a function of the time between lottery drawings, the total value locked in the pool, and Origin Dollar’s annual percentage yield.
Unlucky users will get their OUSD back with no loss of capital, or keep it staked for next week's drawing!
We welcome your feedback! While these products are certainly interesting––and potentially useful––we’re still deciding whether or not to add these products to Origin’s roadmap. If you find these innovations particularly useful, let us know on Twitter or on our Discord!
If you’re interested in learning more about recent updates our incredible engineers have made to Origin Dollar and Origin Story, check out some of our most recent announcements below:
OUSD is a yield-generating stablecoin collateralized by other stablecoins, with security as its top priority. Users exchange USDC, USDT, or DAI for OUSD, which the protocol then deploys into DeFi yield strategies curated by Origin Dollar’s engineers.
Our users have enjoyed earning interest with the security of OUSD in an environment where multiple platforms and exchanges have imploded, without having to deal with the hassle and expenses of asset management.
OUSD generates yield solely through stablecoin lending and liquidity provision, eliminating any risk of speculative positions in volatile assets. There is no market volatility risk, which is commonly the largest risk when investing in cryptocurrencies. OUSD earns yield through stablecoin lending on Compound, Morpho and AAVE and by providing liquidity on Curve and Convex. The 30 and 365 day trailing yield for OUSD hovers around 4% to 7%.
Notably, the yield with OUSD is higher than any singular protocol used by Origin Dollar. Not only is OUSD passive, but it allows for higher yields than the aforementioned blue-chip protocols.
Borrowers on AAVE and Compound put up different types of collateral, such as ETH, BTC and other tokens or stablecoins to borrow assets. AAVE and Compound require borrowers to be over collateralized and will sell their collateral if their leverage crosses a certain threshold.
For example, users posting ETH as collateral on AAVE can only borrow up to 82.5% of their position. If the user deposits 10 ETH worth $1,300 each, they can borrow up to $10,725 USDC. Their collateral will be sold off if their loaned USDC reaches 85% value of their ETH to prevent insolvency i.e. if ETH drops to $1261, AAVE will sell enough ETH to ensure USDC lenders get paid back the full $10,725 plus interest owed.
Using this mechanic, OUSD loans out stablecoins on the platform to earn yield and distribute it to OUSD holders. The yield is earned from the interest and fees generated by the stablecoin pools on Aave and Compound.
Liquidity providers on Curve allow traders to swap assets for a fee, such as swaps between DAI, USDC or USDT. Curve also rewards liquidity providers with CRV tokens, which the market values due to its fee generation, voting rights and boosted liquidity provider rewards.
Convex is a yield optimiser for Curve that prioritizes acquiring CRV tokens. Liquidity providers can stake their Curve position on Convex to earn boosted rewards and CVX tokens. In return, Convex takes a percentage of CRV token rewards.
OUSD acts as a liquidity provider for DAI, USDC, USDT, and OUSD, collecting the trading fees and selling CRV token rewards for more stablecoins. OUSD accumulates in users’ wallets as token rewards and fees are collected through the aforementioned protocols.
OGV is OUSD’s governance token, whereby users can lock it for a period of time in exchange for vote-escrowed OGV (veOGV). The longer the lockup time, the more OGV rewards and voting power users receive. Note that 10% of all yield generated by OUSD goes to the Origin Dollar protocol, distributed to stakers in the form of yield and token buy backs.
veOGV holders are able to vote on the actions and general direction the protocol takes, such as determining how assets are distributed between yield strategies, voting on whether or not to integrate new strategies, changing tokenomics or fee structures, etc. Essentially, veOGV holders are able to influence anything that involves Origin Dollar.
Smart contracts are programs coded to act in certain ways based on its input, as explained in AAVE’s example of lending and borrowing. Though contracts may have multiple audits, there is still a possibility that they may have unintended errors or bugs, which may lead to losses of funds.
Smart contract risk applies to OUSD, AAVE, Compound, Curve, Convex, and any other decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. That said, the longer a smart contract has been deployed, the more time a potential hacker has had to exploit it.
AAVE, Compound, Convex and Curve’s models have been stress-tested over 1-5 years, through volatile events and audits, further analyzed by the Origin engineering team. Based on this, we determine risks to be low and utilize these protocols for our yield strategy.
OUSD is backed by USDC, USDT and DAI, which exposes the token to counterparty risks. Stablecoin issuers such as Circle and Tether issue USDC and USDT. These stablecoins are pegged to the US dollar based on the issuer’s holdings such as cash and commercial paper.
Issuers are subject to U.S regulatory risks and have the ability to freeze the stablecoins in users’ wallets. Since DAI is predominantly backed by USDC in a smart contract, DAI has a similar risk profile.
Based on USDC, USDT and DAI’s track record over multiple years, we determine stablecoin risk to be low.
Overall, by avoiding the usage of speculative assets, our strategies carry one of the least risks in all of DeFi.
The interest earned on OUSD gets directly sent to users’ wallets, without the need for staking or lockups. Boasting unparalleled convenience and emphasis on risk management and security, we believe OUSD is the best place to earn interest on your dollars.
OUSD can be obtained on exchanges such as Kucoin, Gate, Uniswap and Matcha, or directly through the OUSD application with DAI, USDT or USDC.
Every month, the Origin team publishes an update to our token holders and the broader community. We hope you enjoy our December 2022 edition.
If you’re skipping the details, be sure to check out Origin’s 2022 recap at the end of the article!
With new feature rollouts for Story marketplaces and fresh strategy integrations for OUSD, we wrapped up 2022 with exciting new developments for both our flagship products. Collaborating with the team at Pudgy Penguins, Origin Story became the first marketplace to add support for the collection’s soulbound tokens. This month, Story launched new activity feeds and discord activity bots to better serve NFT collectors’ needs.
Pertaining to Origin Dollar, OGV governance unanimously voted to integrate Convex and Curve LUSD pool strategies. After months of internal auditing, OUSD now utilizes these strategies to boost yield for Origin Dollar holders.
In wake of the FTX collapse, self-custodied solutions like Origin Dollar are needed now more than ever. Our co-founder Josh Fraser spoke on the power of OUSD to an audience of over 10,000 at Benzinga’s NYC Crypto conference this month, presenting his case for DeFi. Ironically, Josh took the stage after Kevin O’Leary and Anthony Scarramucci gave their “unbiased” takes on the FTX debacle.
Our head of BD for OUSD Andra Nicolau also spoke at the conference, and she made some exciting connections we’re hopeful to announce as Origin Dollar partners in 2023. Until then, check out all we’ve been up to in our December retrospective below!
We launched a chill new feature for our partners at Pudgy Penguins.
At Origin Story, our foremost objective is to cultivate novel uses for NFTs through our diverse product portfolio. We’ve concentrated our efforts across a variety of sectors, including real estate, music, fashion, loyalty rewards, and beyond. We’ve engaged in numerous promising conversations with prominent web2 brands and eagerly anticipate announcing our partnerships with them in early 2023.
While we work to secure more “tier-A” partnerships, Story’s product team has been hard at work building new, innovative features that are applicable across industries. Our latest product update includes the integration of Soulbound tokens for Pudgy Penguins’ marketplace, powered by Origin Story.
Pudgy Penguins have been among the hottest projects in the NFT community this December, and the collection has an even more exciting roadmap in 2023. We attribute this buzz to the collection’s recent price action, alongside its new product offerings on Pudgy Penguin's marketplace. As we continuously roll out new features on partner marketplaces, Origin Story is laying the groundwork to capture massive trading volumes from our partner collections.
Origin Story integrated Pudgy’s new soulbound tokens into its white label marketplace, allowing collectors to see distributions of SBTs within the collection. These soulbound tokens are the first step in creating a more robust digital identity, and we’re excited to play an important role in its development. As Pudgy Penguins’ technology partner, Story powers their marketplace and continuously builds innovative tools for the team and their collectors.
Origin Story’s team had the pleasure of meeting with Luca Netz at Benzinga's Future of Crypto conference, where we discussed future product rollouts and new integrations on Pudgy Penguins marketplace.
Easily accessing information needed to make informed purchases is important to our users. This is why we’ve recently launched an improved activity feed across all our partner marketplaces, allowing users to filter by sales, listings, transfers, and mints.
Additionally, we’ve built a Discord bot for sales and listings of NFTs on our marketplaces. You can see this in action on Origin's Discord server in the #story-bot channel, and partners will be launching a version of this bot for their own community Discords. We expect this bot integration to drive further interest to Story marketplaces, as communities will have access to this feature directly from their NFT community’s discord.
New protocol integrations are being executed smoothly. Josh and Andra spoke on OUSD V2 live in NYC.
December was a month full of development for OUSD––from both a product and marketing perspective. From co-marketing campaigns with our new partners to in-person events, Origin Dollar is steadily blinking on the industry’s radar.
Origin Dollar yields remain competitive with treasury rates, and the recent OUSD integration with Morpho has boosted yields for OUSD holders. Our engineers have finished implementing the Morpho Aave strategy, and it will be rolling out in early January.
Our most recent upgrade unanimously passed OGV governance this month, so Origin Dollar will now be integrated with LUSD Curve and Convex strategies. Liquity Protocol issues LUSD as an over-collateralized stablecoin backed by Ether, and it has undergone audits internally, as well as by Trail of Bits. After the 48 hour timelock on the multisig transaction, the aforementioned LUSD strategies will be live for OUSD on Friday January 5th.
Users can still only post collateral for OUSD in USDC, DAI, and USDT. However, the underlying LUSD strategies expose Origin Dollar to LUSD, which we believe to hold nearly negligible additional risk. Here’s a breakdown of how Origin Dollar utilizes the LUSD Curve and Convex strategies:
The Origin team got together in New York City to raise awareness about the trustless nature of DeFi and OUSD V2. Our co-founder Josh and Head of BD for OUSD Andra Nicolau spoke to an audience of 10,000 virtual listeners and nearly 1,000 in-person attendees at Benzinga’s Future of Crypto conference alongside other industry leaders in DeFi and NFTs. Josh’s panel on “Defining Trustless Economies” where he spoke on the power of Origin Dollar can be seen below:
Watch Josh's full panel discussion here.
The idea of crypto is you don’t have to trust anyone–you trust mathematics and economic incentives. That allows us to build technology that purely relies on those two things. As long as those two things hold true, we can count on these systems to work.
- Josh Fraser
OGN Season 2 staking is still open. OGV staking now yields 54.94% variable APY.
OGN has a current circulating supply of 503,703,566. No new tokens were issued in December, contrary to our initial token model. As evidenced by the chart below, the amount of OGN in circulation is now over 100 million tokens less than what was initially modeled. In addition, 53.7M tokens are currently locked in the OGN staking pool.
The 53.7 million OGN currently staked in OGN Season 2 earn the revenue made by Story marketplaces. So far in Season 2, there is 214,509 OGN and 28.85 ether in the rewards pool. This number will continue to increase as the season progresses, and holders can stake in this pool until February 6, 2023. Once staking is locked, Season 2 will continue until 3/6/2023 when the rewards become claimable.
Over time, our goal is to increase the ETH and OGN rewards in our staking pools to encourage progressively higher staking rates. Unlike competing NFT platforms that subsidize staking rewards with wash trading fees and treasury tokens, our goal is to consistently increase the yield over time without adding significant OGN supply. This will best position OGN token performance as platform usages grows and we weather the current market conditions.
The circulating supply of OGV currently sits at 429 million. At a variable APY of 54.93%, OGV staking returns remain high. OGV stakers receive veOGV that grant governance rights over OUSD, allowing token holders to vote on Origin Dollar yield allocations and new strategy implementations. Moreover, those who stake OGV earn protocol revenue from OUSD, increasing proportionally with the TVL locked in Origin Dollar.
Most impressively, over 78% of all OGV that is circulating is currently staked to the governance portal. As we scale OUSD usage and OGV staking rates, we expect that there will be near-term catalysts for positive OGV performance and governance utilization.
Let’s zoom out for a minute.
The headwinds of 2022 didn’t stop us from building out incredible product features, accelerating our goal of onboarding the next 100 million users to DeFi. We’re proud to gather some of the teams’ favorite moments from 2022 to share with you, serving as a quick reminder of how far Origin has come over the course of the year.
At the start of the year, OGV didn’t exist, our white label marketplaces were just a concept, there was no OGN staking, and we had yet to dive into the world of NFTs for real-world assets.
2022 was certainly a challenging year for all of crypto. Asset prices dropped considerably, with BTC and ETH falling 75% from all-time highs. Perhaps even worse, consumer confidence was ruined by a series of black swan events, with the collapse of Terra Luna creating broad contagion across CeFi (centralized finance players).
Matthew Liu, co-founder Origin
“This year, we saw multiple black swan events that created a crypto bloodbath, hurt millions of users, and diminished consumer confidence in the asset class. First, UST and Luna crashed, wiping away over $60B of market cap value. Players that were exposed to UST and Luna began falling like dominoes. 3AC, one of the most renowned hedge funds in the space, quickly became insolvent and lost almost the entirety of its once $18B balance sheet. CeFi lenders like BlockFi and Celsius are now bankrupt, racking up hundreds of millions in consumer losses. Perhaps most egregiously, Sam Bankman-Fried and his cronies at FTX misappropriated over $8B of customer funds in an attempt to save their failing hedge fund Alameda Research. Millions of users are affected, and with losses across the board, we are now in a deep crypto winter.”
Matt continued, “The silver lining in this deep bear market is that there is now less noise and speculation in the space. Companies like Origin believe in a decentralized future. OUSD is a perfect substitute for centralized yield products offered by Celsius, BlockFi, FTX, Gemini, and Coinbase. It’s fully transparent and on-chain. We expect many more users to gravitate towards OUSD as the word gets out. Similarly, while speculative NFT trading volume is down considerably, the Origin Story team is working with partners to build the next wave of innovation with NFTs. In the next cycle, utility in games, real-world assets, ticketing, and other use cases will dominate the narrative. We hope to be the picks and shovels technology platform that enables hundreds or thousands of established brands, musicians, athletes, artists, and other creators to launch NFTs to the mainstream. The bear market is painful, but it is also the best time to build the foundations for the next bull market. The winners that survive the bear will be positioned to 10x-100x platform usage in the next couple of years.”
A year building in NFTs seemingly feels like a decade, yet here we are at year’s end. Just 6 months ago Origin Story launched its white label NFT marketplace product, and we’ve partnered with behemoth brands in web2 and web3 alike.
Here are some Origin Story highlights from 2022, brought to you by the Origin Protocol team!
Linus Chung, VP of Story’s Product, answered with OGN staking & shouted out a successful mint:
“The launch of OGN staking and the success of OGN Season 1 stood out as an Origin Story highlight this year. The feature allows token holders to earn marketplace revenue via staking, adding powerful new utility for token holders. OGN Season 1 stakers earned 5.6% APY, proving a viable model for staking revenues without ridiculous token issuance. In 2023, we’re looking forward to locking up more OGN as we increase APYs from here on out.”
He continued, “A personal highlight from Origin Story was the Lucky Ducky generative collection that sold out in minutes. It was incredibly exciting to watch happen. The mint once again affirmed Story’s ability to mint generative NFTs at scale.”
Amit Patel, Head of BD for Story, answered with Origin’s partnership with Roofstock:
“I only recently joined Origin after leading multiple billion dollar business units at Lyft, but I’ve enjoyed working with our partners at RoofStock. Seeing the Story team join forces with Roofstock, Teller, Wyre, and Polygon to finance and sell NFT real estate completely on-chain was an incredible experience. As a real estate investment company valued at nearly $2 billion, Roofstock is an ideal partnership to really make waves in the crosshairs of NFTs and real estate.”
Eric Charles, BD & Account Manager, answered with our white label marketplace launch:
“Watching our white label marketplaces grow into one of Origin’s largest products was a true highlight of 2022. Starting with Pudgy Penguins in June, we began to partner with leading NFT collections to create custom, white label marketplaces. There were a few days in the year that really stood out at Origin: the record 400 ETH Pudgy Penguins sale routed through Origin Story; conducting the first full on-chain NFT home sale with Roofstock; and the day we launched Paris Hilton’s NFTs, to name a few.”
This year, self-custody reigned supreme amongst the numerous CeFi collapses. As these centralized exchanges and yield products imploded, Origin Dollar launched the biggest product updates in its history.
Here are some Origin Dollar highlights from 2022, brought to you by the Origin Protocol team:
Franck Chastagnol, VP of Engineering, answered with the OGV token launch:
“Launching Origin Dollar Governance this year was certainly a highlight for the team. The token launch sets the groundwork for a more decentralized and robust protocol and has allowed us to begin decentralized governance for Origin Dollar. Value accrual for DeFi tokens has been a hot topic this year––products are being utilized but few actually have revenue that flows back into the hands of token holders. Launching OGV lets us directly incentivize OGV holders through OUSD revenues.”
Daniel Von Fange, Senior Engineer for OUSD, answered with some important tech-y stuff:
“There were some big updates under the hood this year that many users may have not even realized, yet it makes Origin Dollar significantly more robust, autonomous, and convenient for holders. One that stood out was the incentivized harvesting mechanic. This allows users to harvest token rewards directly from the OUSD protocol, allowing a more gas efficient, autonomous system. Incentivized harvesting is 100% distributed, as there is no longer a single authority that must fund token reward harvesting.”
Micah Alcorn, Director of Product, answered with OUSD V2 strategies:
“OUSD V2 strategies rolled out this year which had a huge impact on Origin Dollar yields. The new stablecoin strategies on Morpho, Convex, and Curve have allowed OUSD to compete with Treasury bonds which, in the current climate, sit at 4.5%. Over the last 365-days, Origin Dollar’s trailing APY was 5.5%.”
Origin’s team has grown to be 31-people strong, and we’ve continued to recruit top talent from web2 giants and web3 innovators alike. 2022 was the first year Origin has had a formal marketing team, led by our VP of Marketing Jan Sammut who joined us in September of this year. These efforts have laid groundwork to attract newcomers to Origin’s DeFi and NFT products as retail interest progresses.
Moreover, we made key hires this year to lead both our Story and Origin Dollar Business Development teams. Amit Patel recently joined us after over a decade at Lyft where he founded Lyft Business, Lyft’s billion-dollar in revenue B2B service. Since joining, he’s garnered relationships with leading web2 brands across the real estate, fashion, fast food, and ticketing industries. Andra Nicolau joined us earlier this year after raising nearly $300M for 1inch in the year prior. Andra has been crucial for amassing partnerships with institutions, DAOs, and treasury managers for Origin Dollar.
From our engineers to our BD team, we’re proud to have such incredible talent at Origin Protocol. If you think you’d be a good fit for our team… we’re hiring!
As a yield-generating protocol, OUSD continuously integrates new strategies and protocols to ensure the best risk-adjusted yields are captured for holders. Strategies are always market-neutral, making sure that funds are never risked on speculative positions.
The new integration with Morpho allows the protocol to generate yields above or equal to strategies on AAVE and Compound.
By matching lenders and borrowers in a peer-to-peer, way Morpho can create higher capital efficiency, resulting in higher rates for lenders and lower rates for borrowers. For example, if a lender supplies 100k worth of DAI on Morpho and someone borrows it, Morpho could set the rate at 2%, allowing the lender to earn more than they would on AAVE and the borrower would pay less.
If a lender’s capital is unable to find a willing borrower, that capital is simply sent to AAVE or Compound. Once there is demand to borrow capital, Morpho pulls that capital back from AAVE or Compound and lends it. This mechanism allows Morpho to offer equal or higher interest rates for lenders.
Morpho allows lenders and borrowers to be matched peer-to-peer, unlike AAVE or Compound which has a peer-to-pool model. The peer-to-pool model allows lenders to pool their funds into a lending pool, which is tapped into whenever a user would like to borrow from it. This model usually has an oversupply of lending capital compared to the amount of borrowers, so interest paid by borrowers is split into smaller cuts per dollar supplied.
For example, if a lending pool has $3m worth of capital supplied and $2m is borrowed paying a 6% interest rate, lenders will receive an interest rate of 4%. If there is $6m supplied and $2m borrowed paying 6% again, lenders will receive an interest rate of 2%. You can see that the more capital supplied, the less interest each lender receives. Note that this is not an exact example on how AAVE and Compound works, as they have a formula for interest rates based on the utilization percentage of the lending pool.
The oversupply of capital usually results in a spread between the interest rate the lender receives and the interest rate the borrower pays i.e. 1.27% lending rate and 2.71% borrowing rate on AAVE/DAI at the time of writing.
In addition to the vanilla lending strategies on AAVE and Compound, and market making strategy on Convex and Curve Finance, OUSD has added new Convex strategies and the Morpho integration. By constantly analyzing, developing, auditing and deploying new strategies, OUSD ensures holders receive the best risk-adjusted returns in DeFi.
By adding these strategies, OUSD’s 30-day trailing average yields have increased from <3% to >7%, a much higher rate than other blue-chip DeFi platforms offer. Unlike centralized platforms, OUSD strategies can be viewed transparently on the Ethereum blockchain; there can be no obfuscation on the safety of holders’ funds.
On a risk-adjusted basis, it is not farfetched to say OUSD offers the best stable yields in crypto.
OUSD maintains our philosophy of security first, allowing our users to safely earn passive income. In spite of recent events, OUSD remains untouched and continues to generate yield for holders.
OUSD’s integration with Morpho is preceded by the fact that it has been audited by multiple third-parties numerous times, with further reviews from OUSD’s in-house engineers. New market-neutral strategies are being built constantly and can be monitored on our governance page.
If you would like to earn passive yield directly sent into your crypto wallet, OUSD can be acquired through a decentralized exchange aggregator like matcha.xyz, centralized exchanges such as Kucoin or Gate.io, or use our own app on OUSD.com.
OUSD is Origin’s native yield-generating stablecoin, fully collateralized by reserves of USDT, USDC, and DAI. First launched in September 2020, the OUSD ecosystem has been developed expressly to innovate on the developments made in DeFi over the past years and drive value directly to holders.
One of the major impacts of DeFi summer has been the proliferation of stablecoins in crypto. The burgeoning sector now boasts a combined valuation of >$150B, a significant portion of crypto’s total market cap.
This explosion can be attributed to three factors:
Stablecoins constitute any token created to represent another asset, with the value of the underlying asset pegged 1:1.
Stablecoins have branched into two high-level mechanisms: Collateralized stablecoins are fully backed by treasury reserves (as is the case with USDT, USDC, DAI, and OUSD). Conversely, algorithmic stablecoins like Luna’s infamous UST strive to maintain a peg by altering issuance based on supply and demand.
While algorithmic stablecoins are more decentralized by nature, the past year has laid bare the many problems with present algo stable architectures – climaxing in Luna UST’s multi-billion dollar collapse in May.
With the above considerations in mind, OUSD has been developed by Origin as a fully collateralized, decentralized stablecoin with groundbreaking yield generation mechanics.
OGN is the governance and value accrual token for all of Origin's products, including OUSD. Holders can stake OGN for xOGN, which carries voting rights and economic power.
The OUSD protocol deploys automated strategies on Compound (COMP), Convex (CVX), Curve (CRV), and AAVE (AAVE).Token holders vote on which protocols to utilize in order to generate maximal yield while eliminating capital risk. This way, investors can let other token holders decide where to earn yield for them, or vote on which protocols to use themselves.
In contrast to other stable-focused DeFi protocols in the space, OUSD requires no staking or locking of funds in order to generate yield.
Rather, yield on OUSD is delivered straight to your wallet, allowing users the freedom to transact freely while earning passive yield.
USDT, DAI, and USDC maintain a dollar peg by holding reserves of USD and hard assets like treasury bonds. These primarily serve as stable mediums of exchange. However, allocating these stables to established DeFi protocols allows for yield generation.
Conversely, OUSD earns yield intrinsically and is fully collateralized by reserves of USDC, DAI, and USDT deployed to various strategies in order to accrue interest.
Earning interest with OUSD is a straightforward and pain-free process. For example:
Deposits of USDC, DAI, and USDT are allocated across premier DeFi protocols to generate yield via a three-pronged approach:
The OUSD ecosystem is driven by a commitment to true decentralization. All metrics are transparent and easily accessible:
OUSD is the first stablecoin that earns yield directly in your wallet. Due to the protocol’s novel mechanics, there is no need to stake or lock up your OUSD in order to earn rewards.
This is a drastic departure from the norm, where other stablecoins require constant staking and unstaking in order to generate yield. Beyond allowing users to freely transact OUSD, this novel approach eliminates the time and gas costs associated with traditional yield generating stablecoins.
While a host of self-custody Web3 wallets are available, Metamask remains the most widely used, with robust support. To buy OUSD through a decentralized exchange, install metamask by visiting the official site. Once added, you’ll be prompted to either import an existing account or create a new wallet. Next, enter and confirm your wallet’s password.
The wallet can be added as a Chrome extension, or installed on mobile devices via the official Android and iOS apps.
You’ll be prompted to watch a short video on the importance of securing your wallet. Please take the time to do so, as wallet security is of paramount importance. With self-custody comes responsibility, and it’s vital that your Secret Recovery Phrase is kept safe and held solely by you.
Metamask will then generate your recovery phrase and ask you to confirm the correct order.
That’s it! You now have a brand new Web3 Wallet home for your OUSD.
After setting up your Metamask Wallet, you’ll need to purchase either USDT, USDC, or DAI via a traditional exchange, such as Coinbase or Binance.
After purchasing your choice of DAI, USDC, or USDT, deposit your stablecoins to your MetaMask wallet.
Next, navigate to https://www.ousd.com/swap.
Connect your wallet via the button in the top right corner, and swap your desired amount of stables for OUSD to instantly begin earning yield!
Alternatively, you can either purchase OUSD via the Kucoin pair or directly on the Uniswap V3 USDT/OUSD pair using your MetaMask wallet.
OUSD may not automatically reflect in your wallet as Metamask only recognizes a limited range of tokens. To rectify this, navigate to the bottom right of your Wallet and click “import tokens." On the next screen you’ll be prompted to either search for OUSD (a new, experimental feature) or enter the custom token address.
Should you decide to add OUSD as a custom token, simply input the token address:
0x2A8e1E676Ec238d8A992307B495b45B3fEAa5e86
Metamask should fill in the ticker (OUSD) and decimals (18) automatically. Once added, OUSD should reflect in your wallet along with your holdings.
Like any other yield-generating stablecoin, interest earned by OUSD varies according to factors including volume, activity, and the health of strategy allocations.
OUSD’s APY (Annual Percentage Yield) and other relevant metrics can be explored by visiting the OUSD analytics dashboard.
At present, OUSD observes a 30-day trailing APY of above 8%.
OUSD has been developed with an emphasis on safety and robust risk management. Origin’s stablecoin is collateralized by three of crypto’s leading stablecoins: USDT, USDC, and DAI.
Both USDC and USDT are centralized stablecoins backed by real-world dollar reserves and are subjected to regular audits and increased scrutiny from regulators.
Conversely, MakerDAO’s DAI is a decentralized stablecoin backed by reserves of both risk-on crypto and stablecoins, with USDC currently accounting for the majority of DAI reserves. Crucially, DAI is overcollateralized, meaning that reserves exceed DAI in circulation in order to provide a buffer against market volatility. At present, DAI is overcollateralized by 126%.
Protocol security is of paramount importance, especially considering that OUSD’s smart contracts are responsible for handling millions of dollars in user funds. In an environment as fast-paced as crypto, proactive security measures are a necessity.
To this end, Origin conducts regular security audits, both internally and externally using premier smart contract security auditing platforms.
Industry-leading security outfit OpenZeppelin conducted a full-scale audit of OUSD over the span of five weeks in October 2021, finding no major issues.
In addition to OpenZeppelin, Origin has worked with Trail of Bits, Solidified, and Certora on OUSD-related audits. A log of all completed audits can be viewed in the OUSD documentation.
Beyond regular internal audits and audits by established security analysts, OUSD’s entirely open-source codebase can be monitored by skilled and dedicated community members to rapidly identify potential threats.
The OUSD ecosystem’s emphasis on community-driven decentralization has been promoted through the protocol's native token, OGN. Holders can stake their OGN for a set period – from one month up to a year. In return, stakers receive economic and voting power in the form of non-transferrable xOGN.
The amount of xOGN one receives is determined by two factors – the amount of OGN staked and the duration it has been staked for. Among other proposals and considerations, OGN stakers determine OUSD strategy allocations through weekly governance votes.
This approach incentivizes users to stake OGN for longer time periods in order to support the protocol, while also ensuring that those most committed to OUSD’s long-term success are rewarded proportionately.
Typical stablecoins, such as OUSD’s USDC, USDT, and DAI reserves, rely solely on collateral to maintain their peg. Rebasing stablecoins, on the other hand, maintain their dollar peg through regular algorithmic adjustments to supply baked into smart contracts.
OUSD employs rebasing to cater for its elastic supply, an approach pioneered by Ampleforth (AMPL). While the likes of Ampleforth use rebasing to both contract and expand supply depending on distance from peg, OUSD’s supply is up only.
It’s important to note that OUSD differs from other rebasing coins in that the token’s dollar peg is supported by underlying collateral, shielding against the issues of price instability that have plagued purely algorithmic stablecoins. One’s balance of OUSD and principal invested should never decrease, unless a failure occurs with one of the underlying reserves or AMM protocols.
OUSD’s elastic supply only expands as more yield is generated and distributed to holders. This supply is rebased as yield is generated and users interact with OUSD smart contracts.
By using Chainlink Keepers, the protocol ensures that this occurs at least once a day.
Founded in 2017 by seasoned tech entrepreneurs Matthew Liu and Josh Fraser, Origin Protocol is committed to bringing innovative DeFi utility to the masses. The team of experienced engineers is constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible on the blockchain, bolstered by a wealth of advisors.
Origin’s native token, OGN, closed its first seed round in 2017, followed by a strategic sale in 2018, and a CoinList round later that year. The team raised $38 million in runway, including $3 million in advisor funds invested by leading crypto VC group Pantera Capital.
OUSD was launched in September 2020 on the heels of DeFi summer, offering fresh innovations on prevailing stablecoin dynamics in the space.
OUSD offers several key benefits over present yield-generating stablecoins in the space. Most prominent is the ability to freely transact your OUSD holdings while still earning yield – distributed directly to your wallet.
DeFi remains a niche space with high barriers to entry, and simplifying the usual processes of manually staking and compounding allows users to benefit from the protocol without worrying about manual mechanics and the gas and time cost involved in other mechanisms.
Origin’s commitment to transparency and true decentralization is evidenced by OUSD’s comprehensive, easily accessible analytics regarding APYs, reserves, strategy allocations, and more.
Finally, OUSD is fully collateralized by the industry’s most trusted stablecoins, offering users the peace of mind that funds are being managed responsibly with no risk of depegging.
We’re excited to announce a new addition to Origin’s stellar engineering team, Hrik Bho.
Hrik brings with him the insight and expertise of a full stack developer and seasoned crypto native. He first discovered crypto at the age of 15 during 2017’s bull run; however, his passion for Web3 was solidified during the spring of 2021 through NFTs. Upon being introduced to NFTs, he immediately recognized the nascent technology’s immense value in disrupting major industries. This revelation prompted him to take a gap year following his freshman year at NYU.
During this time, Hrik applied himself to learning the spectrum of blockchain architecture in order to hone his impressive skills as a builder.
Hrik was partly driven to join Origin by the strong positive sentiment of his peers. He explains: “I was always a little surprised at how long all of the developers I was talking to had worked at Origin – all around at least 4 years. They only had good things to say and shared stories of being shown understanding of life situations that come up from time to time."
He’s also been impressed by Origin’s culture, highlighting the appeal of a remote environment with strong contributors and a pervasive culture of shared ambition.
When he’s not building the next killer dApp, Hrik enjoys soccer and spending time on NFT twitter. Having played soccer at club level, it's clear that his infectious dedication applies to all realms of life.
Please join us in welcoming Hrik Bhowal to Origin!
Every month, the Origin team publishes an update to our token holders and the broader community. Thanks for reading the November 2022 edition.
While November 2022 wreaked havoc on the broader crypto markets, Origin continues to have a well-managed treasury and battle-tested security to drive its products’ growth. We did not have any direct exposure to FTX and have multiple years of runway in cash and stablecoins to continue pursuing our mission.
Our condolences go out to the investors that are victims of the FTX scandal. Now more than ever, transparent, decentralized, and trustless solutions are needed to replace corrupt legacy corporations.
Here’s what we’ve done in November to get closer to our shared goal.
For those of you strapped for time, here’s the tl;dr.
Following months of development and strict auditing, OUSD V2 is now live. The token is exactly the same as before, and no action is needed by users to gain additional yield via OUSD V2 strategies. OUSD V2 utilizes new Convex and Morpho strategies to earn higher and more diversified yield, while maintaining support for Compound, Curve, Aave, and Convex strategies OUSD has used prior.
Current trailing 30-day APY is 8.49% – nearly a 300% increase since the launch of OUSD V2. While the Origin team expects OUSD yields to vary with macro conditions, boosted APYs are an indicator that the OUSD V2 launch was a success.
Internally, Origin Story launched its NFT Intelligence Platform (NIP) this month, our enhanced backend platform that powers blockchain data intelligence on our Story NFT platform. This important infrastructure update will also serve as the foundation for us to pursue novel new NFT use cases with established brands and Web2 companies coming into Web3.
Also new this month, Story user profiles allow users to select owned NFTs as their profile picture and display names on partner marketplaces. This is a first step toward a rich collector profile experience.
The Origin team did extensive strategic planning and goal setting at our company offsite in the Dominican Republic this month, and we came back with insights regarding Origin Protocol’s products and market positioning. We’re honing in on our most valuable product offerings as we build the groundwork for what’s to come.
Guess what anon? You can now use NFTs as PFPs on Story Marketplaces.
We’re excited to have launched our NFT Intelligence Platform (NIP) this month. NIP is a next generation back-end for Origin Story that gathers and stores metadata for NFT collections––NFT traits, ownership, listings, and sales history. NIP will provide an incredibly fast and up-to-date user experience for our NFT marketplaces, and give traders, collectors and holders critical insights into NFT collections and activity.
The technology exposes a set of simple internal APIs for our marketplace front-ends to query all the data necessary for a great user experience. The data is kept fresh by monitoring blockchain events in real-time, and it subscribes to a variety of data sources across the industry to receive up-to-date NFT transaction data.
Separately, our new Story website is live! The site now displays a handful of our top partner marketplaces, making it easy for collectors to navigate across Story products. Visitors can also view OGN price, circulating supply, and market capitalization directly from story.xyz. Importantly, the site supports our new content management system, allowing for Origin to create its own blog and benefit from in-house content production.
Moreover, Origin Story launched its profile page update earlier this November. The update allows users to select an NFT from their collection to use as a PFP on partner marketplaces, as well as choose a display name in replacement of their wallet address.
Profile support is the first addition to creating an NFT marketplace that serves as an all-in-one platform to better bolster community, conviction, and communication between partner collections and their holders. We’re excited to roll out features to further community interaction, as legacy solutions in this sector are polluted with scammers, grifters, and fraud.
In regards to OGN, the token gained exposure to over 3 million investors this month with integrations on Edge App and Exolix Exchange. Over 50 million (~10%) of OGN supply is currently locked in season 2 staking, which commenced earlier this month on November 8th. Token holders can continue to stake in OGN Season 2 until February 6th, 2023 to receive a share of marketplace revenue generated by Story products.
OUSD V2 yields have hit it out of the park… even without MakerDAO’s help.
After intense auditing, OUSD V2 is now live! OUSD V2 adds improved Convex strategies and implements completely new strategies on Morpho. The trailing 30-day yield sits at over 8.2%––the best risk-adjusted rates currently available in DeFi. As a reminder, OUSD earns yield strictly through stablecoin strategies, eliminating risk of impermanent loss or directional exposure from holding volatile assets.
We’re convinced OUSD V2 is the ideal stablecoin allocation for DAO and company treasuries, as these organizations can benefit from full asset custody and DeFi money market exposure with instant liquidity.
In a similar vein, more DAO proposals are in the pipeline to allocate part of their treasuries to OUSD. While the MakerDAO proposal MIP87 wasn’t ratified, initial polling from PopcornDAO, among others, indicate OUSD is on track to be added to their treasuries. With competitive yields paired with an emphasis on self-custody, we expect retail interest in OUSD to increase as we roll out our OUSD V2 campaign this December.
OUSD and OGV were listed on Exolix this month, allowing a wider investor base access to these tokens. While DAO treasury management has been a recent focus for OUSD, we recognize that retail investors need a decentralized, transparent, and trustless way to generate yields now more than ever.
OGV rewards increase as OUSD interest rates increase. OUSD interest rates are up BIG.
As previously mentioned, OGN Season 2 is off to a strong start with nearly 10% of OGN’s total supply currently staked. As revenue is accrued across our partner marketplaces, these funds are used to fuel OGN staking seasons. To mitigate revenue risks associated with volatile NFT trading volumes, Story has begun to experiment with different revenue models. Up front revenue, such as the revenue from our partner Roofstock onChain, was dispersed in OGN Season 1 and will continue to be dispersed in Season 2.
Those who stake OGV earn yield from protocol revenue and OGV token distributions. As OUSD yields have increased nearly 300%, OGV staking rewards remain high. Moreover, investors who stake OGV have governance rights over OUSD allocations, and as more users mint OUSD to earn yield via OUSD V2, these governance rights become more valuable.
OGV staking rewards currently sit at 56.3% APY. Impressively, 78.5% of OGV is currently locked in staking, eliminating the majority of the circulating supply from hitting the market. OGV is supported on multiple centralized exchanges like Huobi, Gate, and KuCoin, although the simplest way for crypto-native users to gain exposure may be through Uniswap.
We’re honing in on what matters most.
The lack of mania in the markets has allowed Origin to take a step back and hone in on our foundation during the next bull market. Story plans to dive deep with its most valuable partners, and we expect to expand our partnerships with large tech companies looking to integrate non-fungible tokens into their technology stack.
Now more than ever, there’s a clear need for self-custodial alternatives to centralized platforms, particularly in the sector of interest-bearing assets. Unfortunately, investors in FTX, Celsius, and BlockFi have learned the importance of transparency and self-custody the hard way from trusting corrupt institutions with their digital assets. Our goal with OUSD isn’t to simply provide an alternative, however.
OUSD is built to onboard the next generation of crypto users to blockchain, offering the benefits of DeFi with next-level ease of use, security, and convenience. As more users adopt self-custody practices, Origin believes investors will seek passive yield opportunities with instant liquidity. In wake of CeFi insolvencies and complex DeFi functions too cumbersome for everyday users to manage themselves, crypto newcomers are left with few options. OUSD will fill this gap by providing users a safe and easy to use platform for wealth creation.
Talent is still running from CeFi to DeFi, and we’re here for it.
We’re excited to announce the newest addition to the Origin team Hrik Bho, joining us as a full-stack developer! Hrik is a full-stack and smart contract developer specializing in Solidity and JavaScript.
Hrik entered the web3 space by purchasing his first NFT during the 2021 bull market. Over that summer he fell in love with the community and decided he wanted to contribute to the space in a significant way. Outside of development, Hrik is obsessed with NFTs. He monitors market trends and prices daily, looking to add new pieces to his collection. As Origin Story continues to grow from both a technical and partnership perspective, Hrik will support the platform’s growth in various capacities.
Aside from new hires, many Origin team members got to meet for the first time this November. Our team traveled to the Dominican Republic for its first team offsite since pre-covid, and the team shared its business development, engineering, and marketing plans for OGN, OUSD, and OGV under one roof.
Want to join us on our next team offsite, and in the meantime, help us build the necessary infrastructure for sustainable, transparent, and secure wealth creation? Origin is still hiring for a handful of roles, and you may qualify! Below are some positions that we’re still searching for someone to fill:
Did you catch that? We’re hiring!!
We are in search of experienced Product Managers for our NFT and DeFi platforms, a Solidity Engineer, and a full-stack engineer. Check out our job postings, come join us, or refer your giga-brain friends!
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I've been in this game for years, it made me an animal
It's rules to this shit, I wrote me a manual
A step-by-step booklet for you to get
Your game on track, not your wig pushed back
- The Notorious B.I.G
Fate loves irony. The eternal wisdom of T.H.E. Biggie Smalls could have saved us from the successive controlled demolitions that have rocked crypto since this big year began.
Alas, it seems the false gods’ playlists are as trash as their risk management.
Number 4, I know you heard this before
Never get high on your own supply
Rummaging through the wreckage of the past year, it’s hard to unwind the ball of shrapnel that’s drained over 11 figs from the market.
But one thing is clear – we’ve been rolling drunk on leverage since The Great Brrr began.
For ordinary people, taking on debt has been a necessity in a macro climate where individuals are watching their spending power evaporate in real time. With global inflation soaring and JPow aggressively hiking, the average citizen is being squeezed harder than an Alameda stop hunt.
Rekt is an understatement.
This logic falls flat when considering the actions of crypto’s biggest actors.
Number 6, that goddamn credit? Dead it
You think a crackhead paying you back, shit forget it!
Successful CEX’s are, quite literally, free money printers. Similarly, multi-billion dollar hedge funds don’t need to do much to protect capital.
Neither have any logical reason to recklessly deploy customer funds and dial up leverage like Adderall-fueled zoomers trying to make it all back in one trade.
The fact that the market currently hinges on a <$1B fundraise is appalling. During 2021’s fever dream that figure was a drop in the ocean.
While everyone who’s blown up this year is crawling out of the woodwork to blame LUNA for causing the contagion, this is a mid-curve excuse.
Did the space’s “brightest” minds really fail to understand the protocol’s ponzinomics?
How did these firms become so invested that they were willing to risk their balance sheets?
Alright, which one of you actually had size?
7, this rule is so underrated
Keep your family and business completely separated
Sam. Bankman. Fried.
Little more can be written about the largest fraud this space has ever seen. In a not-so-shocking turn of events, the Chinese Wall between FTX and Alameda turned out to be little more than a sheet of single ply toilet paper.
Polycules and DNC/SEC ties aside, SBF’s greed has single handedly destroyed the industry faith that crypto natives have tirelessly cultivated for over a decade.
Yes, SBF dug a $10B hole trading customer funds and using illiquid shitcoins as collateral.
Yes, SBF set the industry back years through his malfeasance.
But counterparties are far from blameless. Did nobody at these firms bother to hit up CoinGecko or look up the definition of FDV?
Most in the space recognized that Solana’s VC-backed ecosystem tokens claimed exponentially bloated valuations, primarily to dump on retail. And yet, counterparties lapped up these tokens in exchange for cold hard cash.
Uh uh. I know what you're thinking. "Did he owe us six bill or only five?" Well to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself. But being this is an FTT printing machine, the most useless collateral in the world and would blow your books clean off, you've gotta ask yourself one question: "Do I feel liquid?" Well, do ya, punk?
Number 3, never trust no-bo-dy
The pantheon of idols has finally imploded. If anything, this seismic purge gives us a real opportunity for a hard reset.
It’s now clear that 2021’s heroes were simply playing hot potato with a flaming ball of daisy-chained leverage. The net effect, of course, is that retail is left to pick up the pieces while the main culprits bide their time in obscene penthouses crowdfunded by their users.
Crypto’s vision has never been to simply digitize the moral bankruptcy of Tradfi.
As brutal as it is, this flush may be the wake up call we need to return to crypto’s core principles – decentralized value exchange built to wrestle the economic monopoly away from central banks.
With BlockFi filing for bankruptcy and Genesis on the brink, it’s likely that more big weeks await us.
Unless low liquidity volatility scalping is your bread and butter, it may be best to touch some grass for a while.
Nobody ever got liquidated waiting to deploy capital… except Do Kwon.
Welcome to PvP
