By OmiseGO (OMG) is the Plasma decentralized exchange, hosting an open-source digital wallet platform from Omise which is connecting mainstream payments, cross-border remittances, payroll deposit, B2B commerce, supply-chain finance, loyalty programs, asset management and trading, and other on-demand services, in a completely decentralized and inexpensive manner.
The OmiseGO network is intrinsically agnostic between fiat and decentralized money and as far as adoption and usage go, the system is constructed so that the best currencies will win. OMG is a very popular payment management platform in Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand.
After finishing their ICO recently OmiseGO raised over $25 million and is priced at $6.89 which is a 900% jump from its initial value at the time of launch and current trading volume is over $200 million.
The parent company – Omise – backed by Ventures – was launched in 2013 and has been providing payment services in countries like Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and has been featured on Forbes as Fintech Rockstar in their November 2016 issue.
While the advisory board of OmisGo consists of the most famous blockchain and Ethereum developers such as Vitalik Buterin, Gavin Wood, Joseph Poon, etc., Omise team also collaborated with many other blockchain technologies that include Hydrachain, Golem, Tendermint, and Cosmos. In fact, Omise has been such a big supporter of Ethereum and its technologies that they funded DEVGRANTS and Raiden.
Even though, commonly perceived as an e-wallet and payment platform in simpler terms, OMG is not in direct competition with current e-wallets or cryptocurrency credit cards such as TenX but in fact it provides a means to pay with any digital asset one uses regardless if it’s Bitcoin, AirMiles or even the local currency of a country that one wants to use on their foreign travels.
With its native currency of OMG tokens, OminseGo – the new blockchain has created a platform that manages fiat tokens, cryptocurrencies, and other assets with its powerful wallet Software Development Kit. To make the whole ecosystem valuable OMG builds a liquid on-chain decentralized exchange and off-chain payment network.
Its ambitious plans such as solving the problems of settlement times, fees, transparency, security, finality, need for the bank to cash-in or cash-out, etc., OMG is closely integrated into Ethereum mainnet and a software development kit is provided to ensure full interaction with OMG network.
By offering the benefits like low fees, fast transaction time, easy cash-outs and cash-ins, etc., OMG is eying for a $442B market of remittance which is huge in Southeast Asia. In addition to Remittance, OMG has its usage for Loyalty points, Mobile banking, Asset tracking, Digital gift cards, and Tokenized fiat.
To contribute further to Ethereum ecosystem and to expand the distribution of OMG tokens as widely as possible, 5% of their tokens will be airdropped to ETH holders based on the amount of ETH they are holding.
OmiseGO has made an informal announcement recently that they are working with McDonald’s in Thailand and have plans for expansion:
“But from a business angle, we’re launching OmiseGO to support Omise Payments and all existing stakeholders, including our existing and future merchants, such as McDonald’s in other countries in Asia – McDonald’s Thailand is just the start. Through OmiseGO, all Omise merchants will be able to seamlessly accept payments in multiple currencies, including ETH or BTC or other cryptos, without needing to know what their client is paying in.”
With the strong team and great advisory board who are Ethereum and Bitcoin experts and with the clear vision of the product combined with the existing customer base, OMG is bound to be highly successful. The only limitation of OMG comes from their building their own blockchain and their complete focus on Asia while neglecting the rest of the world.