We’re thrilled to announce that Origin Ether (OETH) is now live on Ethereum mainnet! OETH is a new-age Ethereum yield aggregator that optimizes yield between liquid staking tokens and ether liquidity provision on leading AMMs. Origin Ether benefits from the same yield boost mechanic that Origin Dollar invented, providing top of the market APYs on both of Origin's OTokens – OETH and OUSD.
Liquid staking tokens (LSTs) are the fastest growing sector in DeFi, but these products currently lack yield opportunities that go beyond validator rewards. While many users are content with earning ~5% APY through staking as a validator, rewards will inevitably compress after Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade that occurred earlier this year.
LSTs will become more liquid now that withdrawals have commenced on staked ether, and more opportunities for DeFi staking will emerge for liquid staking tokens. Origin Protocol is well positioned to deliver top of the market APYs on ether, thanks to the robust smart contracts and innovative yield aggregation techniques initially employed through Origin Dollar.
With a total addressable market of all ether in circulation, liquid staking tokens are still in their infancy. Staking rates on Ethereum currently pale in comparison to other layer 1s, largely due to withdrawals being disabled until recently. Over the next 12 months, it’s projected that ETH staking rates will nearly double from 14% to 27% (Delphi Digital).
Origin Ether (OETH) is an ETH-based yield aggregator that takes our learnings from Origin Dollar and applies them to ether. Similarly to how Origin Dollar operates, OETH is fully backed, liquid at all times, and grows directly in your wallet without needing to pay gas fees. The biggest difference is that OETH accepts liquid staking tokens instead of stablecoins as collateral.
Origin Dollar Governance (OGV) functions as the value-accrual and governance token for OETH. OGV stakers can vote on collateral allocations, future yield-strategies, and fees for OETH holders. At launch, Origin Ether uses 20% of yield generated by the protocol to buy and vote-lock more CVX in order to guarantee future rewards. Protocol fees can also be used to buy back OGV to distribute to stakers, or for other strategic investments passed by veOGV stakers.
Origin Ether introduces a way for users to stack ether faster by optimizing yield between liquid staking tokens and DeFi pools. The Origin Ether vault accepts wETH, stETH, rETH, and frxETH, and it accepts ETH and sfrxETH through Origin’s Zap function. The collateral is then optimized between validator rewards and ether liquidity provision on leading AMMs.
The OETH token is fully liquid at all times. The easiest way to swap out of OETH is usually through Curve, or other decentralized exchanges, but holders can also redeem Origin Ether for its underlying collateral through the OETH dapp.
The Origin Ether vault has exposure to Lido Staked ETH, Rocket Pool ETH, and Staked Frax Ether to earn yield through validator rewards in conjunction with its liquidity provision strategies. OETH is launching with an OETH/ETH AMO strategy on Curve. This strategy helps maintain the peg, provide lower-cost liquidity, and generate higher yields for OETH holders. Down the line, Origin Ether may run its own nodes and become a liquid staking token itself. We’re also interested in exploring new yield opportunities that may arise in the future, such as new restaking protocols like Eigenlayer.
Yield is automatically delivered daily in the form of additional OETH that accrues in holder’s wallets. Origin Ether’s rebasing function effectively levers holders’ ETH to earn higher yield for holders. Since funds held in smart contracts often forgo rebasing, the yield earned on these tokens is sent to holders, enabling them to earn boosted yields via OETH.
In summary:
Origin’s smart contracts have been thoroughly audited by some of the top firms in the space including OpenZeppelin, Solidified, Certora, and Trail of Bits. OETH underwent its own OpenZeppelin audit which will be made public shortly. OETH uses the same core contracts as OUSD, which have been audited by OpenZeppelin and others on an ongoing basis.
The main difference is that OETH uses ETH and liquid staking tokens (LSTs) as the backing collateral instead of dollar-backed stablecoins. OETH also normalizes the accounting across the various supported LSTs so you don't need to do any math to figure out the amount of underlying ETH. 1 OETH is always worth 1 ETH.
Origin Protocol aims to simplify DeFi while providing best-in-class yields for holders. While we encourage OGV holders to participate in collateral allocations, this all happens in the background for the average user. Thanks to OETH rebasing, holders simply need to hold the token to earn yield––there’s no need to constantly claim rewards or pay gas fees to unstake.
The need for yield aggregators will naturally increase as yield from validator rewards compress. Earning significantly more yield than staking directly, Origin Ether provides a solution for holders looking to grow their ETH balancer faster.
OETH is built on top of all our learnings from OUSD. It shares the same vision of giving people access to the best yields available in DeFi with none of the hassles. OUSD was originally launched in September 2020 and has been battle-tested over time with hundreds of millions of dollars in circulating supply. We’re thrilled to now offer OETH as a superior way to stack ETH. We hope this will become an essential building block for all of DeFi.
Head to originprotocol.com to start growing your ETH stack today!
Origin’s core team is building publicly in Discord, and we encourage you to join us in building the superior yield aggregator and liquid staking token that is Origin Ether.
