This article was originally written on Medium in June 2021. Information below may be outdated.
I’m thrilled to announce that Jon Youshaei has joined the Origin team as our first Creator in Residence. As we grow our NFT platform, Jon will work alongside our top creators, host interviews with them, and make content to educate their audiences about crypto as it becomes an even bigger part of the creator economy moving forward.
Many of the creators we work with have millions of followers who are curious about NFTs and crypto, but want to learn about it in a way that’s both engaging and entertaining. After all, NFT’s are so much more than just numbers on the blockchain. They’re about the stories behind them. As a creator himself, Jon understands this through and through. As one of few people to work at both Instagram and YouTube, Jon has lived and breathed this for the past 8 years and worked with many top creators and celebrities.
As a writer for Forbes and Time magazine, Jon knows how to tell stories, host interviews, and simplify complicated topics without dumbing them down. We believe all of this will help us introduce countless new people to NFTs, Origin, and the broader crypto community — and hopefully, make their first experience with NFT’s as fun as watching their first-ever YouTube video or using their first-ever Instagram filter.
I first met Jon at the East West Blockchain conference in December 2017. At the time, he was working at YouTube as their head of creator monetization marketing but eager to learn more about the crypto world. I jumped at the chance to be the first to introduce him to the space. Right then and there, in the hallways of the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, I helped Jon set up his digital wallet and transferred him his first $10 of Bitcoin. That moment, as Jon would later tell me, helped his understanding of Bitcoin grow even faster than the price of it.
Visiting Jon at the Instagram offices in 2019 with Micah and Yu Pan
Over the years, our paths continued to cross. In 2019, Micah, Yu Pan and I met Jon for lunch at the Instagram offices in San Francisco. Jon had recently joined the team at Instagram as one of the first hires on their creator marketing team and we wanted Jon’s advice on some new product explorations we were doing at that time. We laughed as Yu Pan shared stories about the early days of YouTube and how much things had changed and little did we know what was on the horizon. Then in early 2021, Jon started hosting a popular interview series on Clubhouse with creators, including several who launched NFTs with Origin, including Jake Paul, Ryan Tedder from OneRepublic, the family behind the Charlie Bit Me viral video, George Lopez, and more. We recognized this would be a great opportunity to bring Jon into the fold as our first Creator in Residence and help us with upcoming high-profile interviews and drops. All while empowering more creators to learn about the NFT community.
Jon interviewing comedian George Lopez for his Origin-hosted NFT drop
We love the fact that Jon is a creator himself. In addition to his work at Instagram and YouTube, Jon is also known for his public speaking, writing, and original videos. Last year, Jon received recognition for his work from the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 list. We’ve encouraged Jon to continue creating content himself while also being the voice for creators at Origin.
Please join me in welcoming Jon to the Origin family. It looks like my $10 investment paid off in a big way!
Learn more:
Follow Jon on Instagram, YouTube, Clubhouse, and Twitter
Buy Origin Tokens (OGN): Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, Binance, Huobi, Upbit
Get interest-bearing Origin Dollars (OUSD): ousd.com
Check out upcoming NFT drops: originprotocol.com
Every month, the Origin team publishes a monthly update to our token holders and broader community. Welcome to the June 2021 edition. We are eager to hear feedback and suggestions from our community.
It’s been another great month for Origin as we continue to make progress on all fronts. One of the largest personal finance apps in the world made OGN available for purchase and trading. Paris Hilton, the original influencer, joined Origin as an advisor and investor. OGN was listed on more important exchanges and we also announced that Origin is going to the moon with NFTs!
We were thrilled to learn that we were one of the few crypto assets listed on Revolut. Revolut is a financial super app which boasts tens of millions of customers across dozens of countries, who collectively make more than 100 million transactions each month. Revolut is a do-it-all personal finance app that has a very strong user base in the UK and Europe. They’ve helped onboard many new users to crypto much in the same way that Robinhood has done in the US. This represents a large step forward in mainstream adoption of OGN and our products.
Leading Turkish exchange Paribu and leading Indonesian exchange Indodax also listed OGN this past month. Both of these exchanges serve countries where crypto adoption is exploding. OGN being listed on easy-to-use exchanges with local fiat on-ramps is extremely important for adoption. We are very proud of our Turkish and Indonesian communities.
Paris Hilton arguably invented the concept of an influencer and has had a profound impact on popular culture, the arrival of the creator economy, and business as a whole. She has built a multi-billion dollar empire across countless fashion, beauty, media and entertainment, e-commerce and retail, and investment businesses. Paris has already had a huge influence on how we think about the NFT space and we are sure that having her onboard as an advisor and investor will reap extreme dividends for us
Despite yields in DeFi falling across the board, OUSD was able to maintain a double-digit APY for the majority of June. OUSD still offers the simplest and easiest way to get exposure to the best yields in DeFi. Insurance coverage for OUSD is available on Nexus Mutual and Cover Protocol and our users report they are happy with the very premiums.
June saw one of the largest OGN buybacks we have ever conducted. Origin used NFT sales revenue to purchase $1,304,284 worth of OGN on the open market.
June saw little change in OGN staking numbers from May. Almost 110 million OGN have been removed from circulation, an amount equivalent to over 35% of the listed circulating supply or 52% of the true circulating supply.
Circulating supply is currently at 308M compared to a projected 360M tokens. The circulating supply number includes the 110M that is currently staked in our staking program, reducing the actual float further.
To this date, no OGN tokens have ever been sold by either Origin co-founder. They have no plans on selling any OGN any time soon.
With all the craziness going on in the world over the past year and a half, we were extremely thankful to attend Bitcoin 2021 in Miami and see our friends, investors, community members, and NFT collaborators in person. The energy in Miami was incredible and we were thrilled to see NFTs take center stage at what was supposedly a Bitcoin conference. This wasn’t surprising since Miami is one of the most creative cities in the world, hosting conferences like Art Basel. Miami has also become a center of crypto activity under the leadership of a HODLer mayor.
Team Origin with Paris Hilton, Origin’s Advisor & Investor at OGN VIP Event in Miami
We were thrilled to catch up with 3LAU and Jake Paul in person, both highly influential and well-known creators in the space who had record-breaking drops on our NFT Launchpad. We also developed a deeper relationship with some of the top NFT creators like Ali Sabet, Gabe Weis, and NessGraphics, who gave us fresh perspectives into key features that artists are looking for when partnering with a tech platform. Without these artists, the industry simply cannot move forward, and we cannot thank them enough for their lasting contribution and passion for bringing NFTs to the masses. Special shoutout to Paris Hilton who joined us at our VIP event as we celebrated the evening with some of the top influencers in the space. Lastly, we’d like to thank our good friends and investors, Pantera Capital and Blockchain.com, who have shown us support throughout the trip and our journey since the beginning.
As part of our effort to make Origin more accessible to people all over the world, this month saw us launch several community-run regional channels on Telegram. Below is a list of the new channels:
Native speakers wanting to get involved are encouraged to join the channels and become active participants. OGN grants, merch and other perks are available to those willing to help grow the community.
It’s been a while since we’ve hosted an AMA of our own, so this Tuesday, July 6th at 6PM PDT, Origin will be hosting a Twitter Spaces event with co-founder Matthew Liu to answer all your questions.
You can sign-up for the event on Twitter here.
To submit a question for Matt to answer, please visit the following thread on the official Origin Protocol subreddit. Questions will be prioritized based on the number of up-votes they receive, so be sure to engage with other questions you feel are valuable.
We are still looking for an experienced Senior Growth / Marketing Engineer and a Senior Solidity Engineer. Check out our job postings, and come join us or refer your friends!
Learn more about Origin:
This article was originally written on Medium in June 2021. Information may be out of date.
Today, we welcome Paris Hilton as both an investor and advisor to Origin. We’re ecstatic that the world-renowned entertainment and business icon has chosen to team up with Origin and is now aligned to make our products and Origin Tokens (OGN) massively successful.
In the last few months, we’ve been fortunate to spend a significant amount of time with Paris and her fiancé Carter, Partner of M13 Ventures. Paris Hilton is the original influencer that ushered forth the creator economy. Beyond leaving a permanent mark on mainstream culture through her TV shows and music production from the early 2000s until now, Paris Hilton is also one of the most successful female entrepreneurs in the world. Over the years, she has built a multi-billion dollar empire across countless fashion, beauty, media and entertainment, e-commerce and retail, and investment businesses. Her brand appeals to a global and multigenerational audience. Paris has also been an outspoken activist that supports causes for women’s empowerment, LGBTQ rights, and medical care and support for children around the world.
Perhaps most importantly, Paris and her team share Origin’s long-term vision that blockchain technology and specifically NFTs (non-fungible tokens) will empower creators, influencers, artists, and brands to engage more directly with their fans. In the process, NFTs will disrupt existing multibillion dollar industries like digital metaverses/gaming, premium fashion/limited edition merchandise, traditional fine art, and of course, social media and entertainment. Paris articulates her belief in NFTs in her blog post:
I see NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, as the future of the creator economy.
Whether art or music or fashion or design, NFTs allow me to express myself and allow all creators to directly reach their audience, creating a new type of marketplace. — Paris
Despite her massive success in pop culture and business, Paris also shows an incredible amount of humility and eagerness to learn voraciously as a “student of the game”. She’s already forged relationships with top NFT technologists and collectors like WhaleShark, Illestrator, 888, 33NFT, Pablo, and many others. Paris’s recent NFT drop with Blake Kathryn set records for most successful NFT sale by a female creator on NiftyGateway, and she’s just getting started.
Blake Kathryn and Paris Hilton’s 1 of 1 NFT sold for over $1M in April
Beyond creating amazing NFT art, she is also giving back to the community. Paris has donated to the Sevens Foundation to support up and coming NFT artists and is also an avid collector of other creators’ works, having amassed over 130 NFTs to date and also participating in the JennyDAO, a respected NFT collector community.
We’re incredibly excited to work with Paris to unlock new opportunities for Origin. As an investor and advisor, Paris will provide strategic advice on how to most effectively deliver value with NFTs for top-tier creators like celebrities, influencers, and brands. In addition, we look forward to working closely with Paris to bring NFTs to mainstream consumer audiences through education, marketing, and creating new use cases with this disruptive technology (e.g. redemption for physical fashion and accessory items, access to unique experiences or premium content). Please welcome Paris to team Origin.
Learn more about Paris Hilton
One of today’s most recognizable entrepreneurs and international influencers, Paris Hilton is a pioneer in reality television and an innovator in technology, media and celebrity branding.
Since starring in “The Simple Life,” Hilton has built a global empire as an influencer, DJ, designer, recording artist, philanthropist, host, actress, model and author. In 2006, she created Paris Hilton Entertainment, a multi-billion-dollar company consisting of 45 branded stores, 29 fragrances and 19 product lines, which have generated over $4 billion in revenue. In 2011, Variety declared Paris Hilton as a “Billion Dollar Entrepreneur” in recognition of her successful business and global brand.
In 2020, Hilton debuted “This Is Paris,” a critically acclaimed YouTube Originals documentary about her life journey, which has garnered 20+ million views to date. The film follows her success as a business woman but also reveals, for the first time, the abuses she suffered as a teenager at schools in the Troubled Teen Industry. Since the documentary debuted, Paris has used her voice and dedicated her platform and resources to eradicating the abuse of children in systemically abusive institutions. As a direct result of Paris’s efforts, Utah passed SB 127, a bill protecting thousands of youth in residential treatment facilities. Paris is actively working to pass a similar bill on the federal level, and is an active philanthropist in many other areas.
Always attuned to emerging trends and opportunities, Hilton continues to expand Paris Hilton Entertainment into a leading global integrated media and product company with the goal of pushing boundaries, inspiring audiences, empowering creatives and driving lasting positive impact across the world. Paris has been an innovator in the NFT space since March of 2020, and in April 2021 set the record for the highest grossing NFT drop for a female artist. She also recently launched London Audio (podcast production company in partnership with iHeartMedia), Slivington Manor Entertainment (TV production company with an overall deal at Warner Bros.), and PHE Digital. As an investor, Hilton is committed to supporting and investing in the next generation of entrepreneurs positively impacting the world at companies such as Daily Harvest, R3SET, Good Catch, ZenWTR, Podz, and many more.
Learn more about Origin:
Every month, the Origin team publishes a monthly update to our token holders and broader community. Welcome to the May 2021 edition. We are eager to hear feedback and suggestions from our community.
Another exciting and productive month has passed for Origin. We broke records again with the highest value meme NFT ever sold with Charlie Bit My Finger for over $760,000. This sale generated headlines worldwide and we were featured on The New York Times, BBC, Good Morning America, USA Today, Time Magazine, CBS, CNBC, ABC, and Fox News among many others. The sale was especially big news in Korea, making the front page of Naver (the equivalent to Google) and being on Korean public broadcast TV on MBC, SBS, and YNA.
Millions of people around the world were exposed to the idea of NFTs and to Origin for the first time. Origin now holds the records for most successful music NFT sale ($11.7M with 3LAU) and most successful viral video/meme NFT sale. We also saw the landmark listing of OUSD on KuCoin and a dramatic increase in the OUSD supply, showing strong growth and adoption.
In addition to the record-breaking Charlie Bit My Finger sale, Origin also completed a successful NFT sale for Micro electric bikes. This sale paired NFTs with limited edition next generation mobility devices. Origin is committed to pushing the boundaries of NFTs beyond digital collectibles and into real world use cases. We also announced an upcoming drop for a collaboration between MonoNeon and Kii Arens, two world-renowned artists. MonoNeon won a grammy working with legendary rapper (and crypto investor) NAS and was one of the last people to work with the most important pop musicians ever, Prince. Kii Arens has created art for Dolly Parton, The Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, Radiohead, Bernie Sanders, PIXIES, Coachella, and Elton John. Rounding out NFT news is our second drop with Mike Dean and Shepard Fairey. The legendary artists had a successful drop on Origin’s NFT Launchpad last month.
Origin Dollar (OUSD) was listed on a top-10 global exchange in KuCoin. KuCoin is a major hub of activity for altcoin trading and with users looking for exposure to new projects. So far, nearly $500k in OUSD has been staked and held to receive industry-leading yields without the complicated and expensive actions required by yield farming.
Being listed on centralized exchanges with large user bases is key to the long-term success of OUSD. Having to use MetaMask and pay transaction fees is a major blocker for many mainstream users who are curious about DeFi and yield farming but have never gotten started. We aim to make it easier and easier for mainstream users to participate in DeFi with continued advancements with OUSD. The supply of OUSD rose over $10 million in May alone, reaching $18 million. A third decentralized insurance provider, Bridge Mutual, has added coverage for OUSD alongside Nexus Mutual and Cover Protocol. We look forward to seeing OUSD and OGN integrated with more and more decentralized and centralized platforms.
This month we saw a modest increase in OGN staking numbers, from 79 million tokens staked to over 81 million tokens staked. Almost 110 million OGN have been removed from circulation, an amount equivalent to over 35% of the listed circulating supply or 52% of the true circulating supply.
Circulating supply is currently at 307M compared to a projected 341M tokens. The circulating supply number includes the 110M that is currently staked in our staking program, reducing the actual float further.
No OGN tokens have ever been sold by either Origin co-founder. They have no plans on selling any OGN any time soon.
This month our regional communities have experienced especially strong growth. We wanted to highlight our Spanish language community led by Moisés and our Turkish community led by Neshe. Moisés is based in Venezuela and has been a passionate crypto enthusiast for a long time. He volunteered for Origin before we hired him and he is a great example of someone being empowered by cryptocurrency in a country suffering from high inflation.
Neshe has helped our Turkish community reach record engagement and her efforts have attracted the attention of top influencers in Turkey. We are thankful to have them representing us on a global stage.
We are pleased to announce that famed musician and crypto influencer-investor 3LAU has joined the Origin team as an advisor. Origin has made a number of key hires in the past month or two and our pipeline for business development candidates is quite healthy. Moving forward, we are focusing most of our efforts to hire on the engineering and product side of the company. We are still looking for an experienced Senior Growth / Marketing Engineer and a Senior Solidity Engineer. Check out our job postings, and come join us or refer your friends!
Learn more about Origin:
This article was originally written on 5/25/21 on Medium. Information in this article may be dated.
We are happy to announce that our close friend, OGN investor, and partner in our recent record-breaking NFT drop has officially joined the Origin team as a formal advisor. In addition to being an acclaimed musician and producer, Justin Blau, aka 3LAU (pronounced “Blau”) has quickly risen to fame as a thought leader in the NFT space. He’s also heavily invested in crypto with an enviable portfolio and growing recognition as a top influencer within the blockchain community.
Matt and I first met Justin in 2017 and we immediately hit it off. We were huge fans of his music, and Justin was incredibly well-educated on cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, and finance. We weren’t surprised to learn that he was once a full-scholarship finance major at Washington University with an offer to join BlackRock before he dropped out to pursue music full time. In 2018, we advised Justin on the launch of Our Music Festival (OMF), the first-ever blockchain-powered music festival, which resulted in a sold-out success. Now, Justin will be advising Origin on NFTs and lending his powerful network of musicians, artists, creatives, and other contacts to us in a formal capacity.
Justin is not only a prominent investor, collector, and thinker in the NFT space, he also ranks as one of its top creators as well. His Ultraviolet NFT drop on Origin’s NFT Launchpad garnered nearly $11.7 million in a primary sale, the record for any NFT sale at the time. Justin’s other NFT drops have also generated multi-millions in primary and secondary sales as well. Through Justin, many other high-profile musicians and creatives are getting involved in the NFT space for the first time. Justin is also an investor and major participant in the DeFi space. He has appeared in too many mainstream publications and media properties to count, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes, CNBC, CNN, and Wired.
We are excited to strengthen our relationship with Justin and look forward to him helping us take Origin and NFTs mainstream over the coming years. He joins Andrew Kang of Mechanism Capital, one of the preeminent thinkers in the DeFi space, as a recent addition to the Origin advisory team. Some of our long-term advisors include Joey Krug, co-founder of Augur and Eco and co-CIO of Pantera Capital, Paul Veradittakit, partner at Pantera Capital and one of the most prominent investors in the space, and Melody He, co-founder and partner at Spartan Group, one of the world’s leading crypto and DeFi investment firms.
Learn more about 3LAU
Justin Blau, aka 3LAU, is a world-renowned musician and producer, best known for his chart-topping hits and unique DJ style. Starting small at college fraternity parties, 3LAU quickly rose to fame, performing at sold-out shows around the world. Today, he has amassed over 1 billion music streams across Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube, and other platforms. Over 300 million streams are from his Ultraviolet Album. Justin is an early crypto adopter who consistently pushes the limits of what is acceptable in mainstream media. He’s been an open advocate for tokenizing music and building the investable layer of music on blockchain technology. CoinTelegraph recently named him as its 93rd most Notable Person in blockchain for 2021.
Learn more about Origin:
Buy Origin Tokens (OGN): Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, Binance, Huobi, Upbit
Track OGN token metrics: originprotocol.com/dashboard
Get Origin Dollars (OUSD): ousd.com
Learn more on our company website: originprotocol.com
We previously published a guide on how to buy OGN if you are a US resident. With the listing of OGN on Coinbase, this just got a lot easier. Coinbase is by far the largest on-ramp for US crypto investors and OGN is available both on Coinbase Pro and Coinbase’s retail site and mobile app. OGN being available on Coinbase means that millions and millions of people will be able to easily buy OGN for the very first time. This brings our mission to take NFTs and DeFi mainstream one giant step closer to reality.
Log into your account at Coinbase.com. If you don’t have an account you can follow this guide to create one.
2. From the home screen, click the blue “Buy / Sell” button in the top right corner and type in “OGN” or “Origin Token” and enter the amount you want to buy in dollars.
3. If you don’t have any payment methods set up, you can link your bank account or use a debit card or wire transfer. Debit cards are the fastest method but have smaller limits than linking your bank account or using a wire transfer.
4. Once you are happy with your payment method, click “Preview Buy” and make sure everything is correct, then click “Buy now” to confirm your purchase.
Open the Coinbase mobile app or download it on the Apple App store (iOS / iPhone) or Google Play store (Android).
2. Tap the two arrows in the blue circle in the center of the bottom panel in between “Portfolio” and “Prices” to open the trading and transfers module.
3. Tap “Buy” to open the buying module. Scroll down until you find “Origin Token / OGN” and select it.
4. Enter the amount you want to purchase. If you want to change your payment method or set a new one up, tap the payment section module below “One time purchase” and above the number pad.
5. If you don’t have any payment methods set up, you can link your bank account or use a debit card or wire transfer. Debit cards are the fastest method but have smaller limits than linking your bank account or using a wire transfer.
6. Once you are happy with your payment method, tap “Preview buy”. Check the details of your purchase and click “Buy now” to complete your OGN purchase.
Many cryptocurrency projects consider a Coinbase listing to be their crowning achievement. While we are beyond thrilled to have OGN trade on the world’s premier exchange and bring our project to millions of new mainstream cryptocurrency users, we see today’s milestone as just one crucial step in our path forward. We believe the best days of Origin are yet to come, and we will work tirelessly until hundreds of millions of customers are using our products. Look forward to new partnership announcements regarding OUSD, Origin Story, and OGV, as well as additional exchange listings for OGN and OUSD.
Learn more about Origin:
We are ecstatic to announce that Coinbase, the world’s most prestigious cryptocurrency exchange and leading on-ramp for retail users, announced they will be listing Origin Tokens (OGN) at 9AM PT on Friday April 9th on Coinbase Pro. OGN-USD and OGN-BTC order books will launch in three phases, post-only, limit-only and full trading.
Coinbase was recently approved by the SEC for a direct listing on the NASDAQ and will be premiering its COIN stock on April 14th, 2021. A cryptocurrency exchange going public on the US stock market is a historic moment for the entire industry, and we are overjoyed to be a part of this movement that will further increase adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies.
It is hard to overstate how important this milestone is for Origin and our global community. Coinbase is by far the most common way US retail customers start their journey into crypto, and the spotlight on Coinbase will greatly increase when they go public. Throughout the last few weeks alone, we’ve received thousands of requests from US individuals looking to purchase OGN, and now these users will have a quick and seamless way to participate in the Origin community. In addition, millions of people will learn about Origin for the very first time simply by being exposed to the OGN trading pairs on Coinbase. Notably, the OGN-USD pair provides a direct fiat onramp for our many US supporters. We are now one momentous step closer to achieving our mission of bringing NFTs, decentralized commerce, and decentralized finance (DeFi) to the mainstream.
At Origin, we have been building cryptocurrency products for nearly four years. Origin was founded in 2017, and we released our early marketplace application to the Ethereum mainnet in 2018. Since then, we have built products in the decentralized commerce space with a focus on NFTs as well as in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space.
We have worked with some incredible corporate partners including Samsung, Google, and Amazon. Origin has been covered in outlets like The New York Times, TechCrunch, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal. We have already broken records with our NFT launches and are working with world-famous creators such as Jake Paul and Lupe Fiasco to launch more NFT collections. In the next few weeks, dozens of additional creators will launch on our NFT Launchpad. Despite all of these past accomplishments, we believe the future is even brighter for Origin, and we will not rest and will keep pushing ahead to bring our products to mainstream users in the coming months and years.
The Origin Token (OGN) is the governance and value accrual token for the entire Origin Platform and suite of products. OGN holders will be able to make and vote for proposals to determine how our various commerce and DeFi protocols are governed. Part of the value transacted across our products will be captured and accrue to OGN as well.
Deposits of OGN will be enabled from today. Trading will go live at 9AM PT on Friday April 9th.
This corresponds to the following times across our global community:
To trade OGN, you will need to sign up for an account on www.coinbase.com and pass Coinbase’s AML (anti-money laundering) and KYC (know-your-customer) checks.
If you have additional questions or need help with this process, please email us at [email protected].
At Origin, we are committed to building a generationally-significant company that will create impact and value for our customers for decades to come. When Origin was founded, we chose to implement four-year vesting schedules for all team members to ensure all our employees were incentivized to create long-term value. We took this practice from our experience as serial entrepreneurs and operators at some of the most successful startups of all time, working with some of the most successful founders of all time. Our founding engineer, Yu Pan, was a co-founder of PayPal alongside Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, and others. Much of our team has worked together in the past as some of the earliest employees at YouTube before moving onto Google and other iconic tech companies like Dropbox.
As a reminder to our community, Origin’s two co-founders, Matthew Liu and Josh Fraser, volunteered to start new four-year unlock schedules beginning in January 2020 despite having already vested more than half of their tokens. To date, neither co-founder has sold a single token.
The entire Origin team and investor base are aligned to act in the long-term interests of the project. Full details about our projected and actual circulating supply as well as other important token metrics are accessible at our OGN dashboard.
Many cryptocurrency projects consider a Coinbase listing to be their crowning achievement. While we are beyond thrilled to have OGN trade on the world’s premier exchange and bring our project to millions of new mainstream cryptocurrency users, we see today’s milestone as just one crucial step in our path forward. We believe the best days of Origin are yet to come, and we will work tirelessly until hundreds of millions of customers are using our products. Look forward to new partnership announcements regarding OUSD, Dshop, and our NFT Launchpad as well as additional exchange listings for OGN and OUSD.
Learn more about Origin:
Every month, the Origin team publishes a monthly update to our token holders and broader community. Welcome to the March 2021 edition. We are eager to hear feedback and suggestions from our community. Please email [email protected] for support requests and [email protected] for general inquiries/comments. Please email [email protected] if you are a creator looking to launch NFTs on Origin.
NFT mania is in full swing and Origin has established itself as a leader in the space. We’ve seen continuous mainstream coverage of NFTs from outlets like the New York Times and CNBC. Perhaps the breakthrough moment of NFTs capturing the public imagination was the recent Saturday Night Live sketch that went viral on Twitter. It isn’t surprising that NFTs are bringing crypto into the mainstream since NFTs are the confluence of art, culture, speculation, and the increasing financialization and digitization of content. NFTs represent an incredibly exciting opportunity that is growing exponentially. We believe Origin Protocol will power many of the biggest NFT drops this year. Origin is building a fully-featured NFT platform and poised to capture this huge market.
To follow up our record-breaking NFT launch from last month, we have announced that we are hosting the first-ever NFT drop by Lupe Fiasco, a Grammy Award-winning and multi-platinum musical artist. Not only is Lupe one of the biggest names in hip hop, he is a notable entrepreneur and social activist who was recently appointed an Artist in Residence at MIT. Lupe was named GQ’s Man of the Year and was also a Henry Crown fellow in the past. Lupe has also been a crypto investor and involved with NFTs for years. We think it is key to work with artists and creators that understand crypto and have established roots in the space.
Another important development this month was the raising of the collateral factor from 0% to 45% for OGN on Cream Finance. This means that users not only can earn interest from depositing OGN as collateral, but they can also now borrow up to 45% of the value of their deposited OGN. OGN holders can now access additional liquidity without having to sell OGN. For example, OGN holders could deposit OGN onto Cream and borrow USDT to mint OUSD and earn yield passively without decreasing their OGN position at all. This is a game-changer for OGN and a significant milestone for our integration into the wider DeFi ecosystem.
OGN also saw another major exchange listing on Gate.io, following up our listing on HitBTC from last month.
In OUSD news, we announced the completion of a third security audit of the OUSD smart contracts and code. Leading security firm Certora performed a formal software verification of OUSD. This kind of security audit is designed to uncover different edge cases and give unique guarantees about the security of our platform than a typical audit. We remain committed to making OUSD the easiest and most secure way for the average person to get exposure to DeFi.
We are also now working with Chainlink exclusively for real-time price feeds for OUSD. We are very excited to collaborate with them and share in their incredible community.
This month we saw a huge increase in OGN staking numbers, from 38 million tokens staked to nearly 78 million tokens staked. Part of the increase in participation is due to our partnership with Binance, who announced a proxy staking program for OGN this month. This means that almost 110 million OGN have been removed from circulation, an amount equivalent to over 40% of the listed circulating supply or 56% of the true circulating supply.
Circulating supply is currently at 273M compared to a projected 291M tokens. The circulating supply number includes the 78M that is currently staked in our staking program, reducing the actual float further.
We are also proud to state that Origin’s founders have sold zero OGN tokens and have no plans of selling tokens anytime soon. Unlike many crypto companies, we are focused on long-term value creation and not short-term speculation.
Origin was recently a featured guest on the Binance AMA series. If you missed out, you can check out the transcript of the event. We highly value our relationship with Binance and will continue to work with them on many fronts.
Origin has seen an explosion in social media activity and mentions by influencers. This extends to mainstream influencers outside of the crypto space. We are very excited to help usher crypto into the mainstream.
Due to the incredible amount of inbound we are receiving from artists and creators, we are looking to hire a Talent Relations Manager. If you are interested in NFTs and have worked in the media or entertainment industry before, especially in a client-facing role with top talent, we want to speak to you. We’re also still looking for an experienced Senior Growth / Marketing Engineer and a Senior Solidity Engineer. Check out our job postings, and come join us or refer your friends!
Learn more about Origin:
Every month, the Origin team publishes a monthly update to our token holders and broader community. Welcome to the April 2021 edition. We are eager to hear feedback and suggestions from our community. Please email [email protected] for support requests and [email protected] for general inquiries/comments. Please email [email protected] if you are a creator looking to launch NFTs on Origin.
It has been another extremely busy month at Origin filled with headline-making NFT drops and the listing of OGN on Coinbase. We have been inundated with interest from the crypto community as well as mainstream attention due to our NFT partnerships with household name celebrities. Now, retail users and people learning about crypto and NFTs for the first time can access OGN on Coinbase. This is an extremely important synergy and crucial to the long term success of Origin.
Origin launched a number of high-profile NFT drops in April. We recently completed the first-ever NFT drop by Grammy Award-winner Lupe Fiasco and announced a drop by another Grammy Award-winner in One Republic’s Ryan Tedder. Origin also completed a viral meme NFT drop by DudeWithSign and a drop by the legendary visual artist and designer behind OBEY and the Obama Hope posters, Shepard Fairey, in collaboration with the award-winning hip hop producer Mike Dean. In addition, we announced another music NFT drop with Bassjackers and completed a huge NFT drop by mega-influencer Jake Paul centered around his super viral knockout of Ben Askren. We were able to get mainstream media coverage in Forbes, Rolling Stone, and Variety.
Origin also saw a spate of exchange listings for OGN, including Coinbase and Coinbase Pro, Crypto.com, and the launch of an OGN perpetual futures contract on Binance. These are all mainstream, globally recognized exchanges. The ability for retail users to easily buy OGN in the US via the Coinbase App or for institutional traders to hedge or trade with OGN derivatives on Binance means that OGN is a rapidly maturing digital asset.
This month we saw a modest increase in OGN staking numbers, from nearly 78 million tokens staked to over 79 million tokens staked. Some additional investor tokens and team tokens were unlocked this month but the market absorbed them well. Almost 100 million OGN have been removed from circulation, an amount equivalent to over 35% of the listed circulating supply or 47% of the true circulating supply.
Circulating supply is currently at 284M compared to a projected 299M tokens. The circulating supply number includes the 79M that is currently staked in our staking program, reducing the actual float further.
To date, neither Origin co-founder has sold a single OGN token and they have no plans on selling any tokens anytime soon.
Origin participated in a number of community events this month, including an event with our partner Chainlink for the Korean community. We have been very active on Clubhouse, so please make sure to follow @matthewliu, @joshfraser, and @williamt to connect with us there.
We are also thrilled to announce that Andrew Kang is joining the Origin community as a DeFi and NFT advisor. Andrew is one of the foremost thinkers in the DeFi space and his fund Mechanism Capital are among the most prominent investors in the space.
Origin is pleased to welcome two new hires this month, Chase Colman and the aforementioned William Tong! Chase will be bringing her amazing project management and organizational skills and William will be utilizing his incredible networking ability and passion for NFTs to the team. We actually met William in a fairly nontraditional manner while Chase was a referral from our very own VP of Engineering, Franck. William was one of the most consistent and helpful community members of the NFT scene on Clubhouse. Both Chase and William stood out right away due to the energy and professionalism they exude and we made them offers immediately. We are proud to be able to identify talent from all channels from social media to the open source developer community. Origin does not believe in being constrained by only hiring from job postings and based on pedigrees and resumes.
We are still on the lookout for a Talent Relations Manager. If you are interested in NFTs and have worked in the media or entertainment industry before, especially in a client-facing role with top talent, we want to speak to you. We’re also still looking for an experienced Senior Growth / Marketing Engineer and a Senior Solidity Engineer. Check out our job postings, and come join us or refer your friends!
Learn more about Origin:
Buy Origin Tokens (OGN): Coinbase, Binance, Huobi, Upbit
Track OGN token metrics: originprotocol.com/dashboard
Get Origin Dollars (OUSD): ousd.com/mint
Stake your OGN to earn: ousd.com/stake
Learn more on our company website: originprotocol.com
