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:
