Tag: OmiseGO

Categories
Crypto Exchanges

What Is OmiseGO (OMG)?

From being centralized to being expensive, today’s crypto exchanges come with their own share of issues. Besides, they often have a limit on how many transactions they can handle, a factor that has led to downtimes in times of high traffic.

From being centralized to being expensive, today’s crypto exchanges come with their own share of issues. Besides, they often have a limit on how many transactions they can handle, a factor that has led to downtimes in times of high traffic.

From being centralized to being expensive, today’s crypto exchanges come with their own share of issues. Besides, they often have a limit on how many transactions they can handle, a factor that has led to downtimes in times of high traffic.

A solution is thus needed for instant, peer-to-peer transactions on a scalable platform. With its game-changing Plasma technology, OmiseGO promises to be the frontier for such a solution. What is this Plasma technology, and what exactly is OmiseGO? We answer this question together with detailing how you can acquire some OMG coins and more.

What is OmiseGO?

Founded in 2017, OmiseGO (OMG) is a decentralized crypto exchange and a bank that runs on the Ethereum blockchain.  The project describes itself as “the answer to a fundamental coordination problem among payment processors, gateways, and financial institutions.” 

OmiseGO is the brainchild of Omise, a payments company based in Thailand. The team comprises CEO Jun Hasegawa, Vitalik Buterin, Joseph Poon, Dr. Gavin Wood, Vlad Zamfir, and Roger Ver.

The project’s mission is to enable people to have secure access to financial services, including the ability to invest, exchange, and spend digital assets anywhere.

OmiseGO has two products: the white label eWallet and the decentralized OmiseGO network. The OmiseGO network uses Plasma architecture to achieve scalability. (A white label product is one that can be used by many different brands. That means developers can create their own wallets based on OmiseGO’s eWallet.)

OmiseGO’s Core Components

The OmiseGO platform has five core components: a decentralized exchange, a developer kit, eWallet Suite, OmiseGO coin (OMG), and Plasma technology. Let’s look at these technologies in more detail below:

Decentralized Exchange

OmiseGO’s decentralized exchange allows cross-chains transactions to take place, meaning users can trade cryptos directly across blockchain networks. These transactions are verified through a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism in a process where OmiseGO users stake their tokens to vote on the validity of transactions.

A Software Developer Kit

OmiseGO’s platform provides a set of tools to developers with the hope that they will use these tools to create high-quality, user-friendly wallets for users on the platform. The kit is designed in such a way that developers do not have to have an in-depth understanding of blockchain to create wallets. With the kit, developers can also integrate debit and credit card account transfers through which users can deposit, withdraw, and convert fiat money into digital currency.

OMG Token

The OmiseGO Network relies on a Proof-of-Stake mechanism to validate transactions. Coin holders leverage their stake to have a say in the running and protocols of the network in a decentralized manner. 

Users also pay for transactions on the network via OMG coin.

eWallet Suite

OMG’s eWallet suite is a bridge that allows users to connect seamlessly to the OmiseGO network.

It allows users to interact seamlessly with the OmiseGO network. The wallet is customizable, meaning you can tweak and develop it to suit your own needs. You can also use it to store loyalty points, game tokens, both crypto and fiat money, and more.

Plasma

Plasma is a blockchain scaling solution created by Joseph Poon and Vitalik Buterin.  Plasma’s white paper states that “Plasma is a proposed framework for incentivized and enforced execution of smart contracts which is scalable to a significant amount of state updates per second (potentially billions) enabling the blockchain to be able to represent a significant amount of decentralized financial applications worldwide.”

In essence, Plasma is blockchains on top of a root chain. Think of plasma being the branches to the root, i.e., the main blockchain, e.g., the Ethereum blockchain.

Here are the design goals of the project

One main blockchain and child chains – The main blockchain is the root blockchain, and every other child chain is derived from it. Both types of blockchains run independently of each other.

Minimization of the need for trust – The system is as trustless as possible. None of the child chains is dependent on the actions of particular actors.

Ledger scalability – The blockchains need to hold a lot of data. The ‘branch’ chains should be able to accommodate the data that would be normally held by the main blockchain. 

Scalability – The child chain ought to be able to implement various scaling solutions, e.g., sharding and the lightning network.

Localized computations – Each child chain should be able to perform their own calculations and provide updates to the main blockchain at regular intervals.

Fraud proofs – In the event of a dispute, the concerned party should be able to send proof to the root chain. The root chain can then roll back the state of the child chain and penalize the signers of the block of the child chain.

Uniqueness for every chain – The child chains should have their own governance procedures, provided they are reporting back to the main chain at the required intervals

What’s So Special with OmiseGO?

OmiseGO differentiates itself from standard exchanges by two qualities: decentralization and being currency agnostic.

Decentralized. Today’s exchanges are centralized, meaning they are owned by an exchange that makes all the decisions and owns users’ data. On the contrary, OmiseGO is completely decentralized, so users retain ownership of their data. Data is also secure on the blockchain such that it’s impossible to tamper with.

Currency Agnostic. The majority of exchanges only allow users to obtain a particular crypto after converting fiat money to another crypto, mostly Bitcoin or Ether. This process is inconvenient and also expensive as users are charged fees at every stage.

OmiseGO circumvents this process by charging a small flat fee for all conversions, whether from fiat to crypto or from crypto to crypto.  

OMG Statistics

OmiseGO is currently trading at 0.652534 (December 23, 2019) while ranking at number 47 in terms of market capitalization. Its all-time high was $28.35 on January 08, 20, while its all-time low was $0.319695 on July 16, 2017. OMG’s total supply is 140, 245, 398.

How to Buy and Store OmiseGO

You can buy OMG coins from exchanges such as Binance, Kucoin, HitBTC, and more. Most exchanges will require you to purchase BTC, Ether, or Litecoin so as to exchange it for OMG. Some exchanges also accept Litecoin.

You can use any ERC 20 compatible wallet to store OMG. Hardware wallets such as Trezor, Ledger Nano, Cobo Vault, and Cool Wallet S are also recommended.

Conclusion

OmiseGO promises to change the crypto exchange landscape with cheaper fees, a decentralized function, and creative, user-friendly wallets. The company behind it is an established player in the Asian market, boasting a massive base of users. The project is also supported by leading players in the blockchain and crypto space, putting it in a competitive spot. Its Plasma technology has capabilities that could see OmiseGO disrupt the crypto exchange industry. It should be interesting to watch how the OMG evolves in the coming years.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Update 13.06.2018 – Another Flash Crash Coming?

General Overview

Market Cap: $272,840,869,681

24h Vol: $15,609,802,094

BTC Dominance: 40.4%

In the last 24 hours, the cryptocurrency market cap has declined from 295,086,000,000$ to around 272 billlon dollars which is a 23 billion dollar decrease.

The market is currently in the red, with an average decrease ranging from 10-15%. Among top 100 coins, only Decentraland (+2%) and Emercoin (+5%) are in the green.

News

Top headlines that came out in the last day are mostly regarding corporations and major players adopting blockchain technology. Some of the most significant news that fit into that category are the following:

Multiple Russian corporate giants have created a joint venture that plans to develop projects in blockchain and the digital economy, as reported by TASS.

Russian telecom company MegaFon, Gazprombank, government corporation Rostec, and the USM Group have created a joint venture – referred to as MF Technologies (MFT) – that is worth $450 mln and has a 59 percent stake in Russian Internet giant mail.ru.

Argo, crypto mining firm, set to become London Stock Exchange’s first blockchain listing, as reported by Bussines insider.

After launching its subscription service for mining contracts the same day, the company says it plans to hold an IPO, following a $2.5 mln funding round it completed in January of this year.

Argo says it aspires to “democratise” the mining landscape for four altcoins – Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic and Zcash – by renting computing power from an eco-friendly facility located in Quebec.

 VeChain (VEN), Singapore-based blockchain startup, and DB Schenker, global logistics provider, have co-developed a blockchain-based supplier evaluation system, according to cointelegraph. 

A new decentralised application (DApp) will use the VeChainThor blockchain to score DB Schenker’s third-party logistics partners in China based on collected data – the result being an evaluation for services such as packaging, transportation, and the quality of goods.

Out of news that fit into this category, the story reported by Korea JoongAng Daily regarding South Korean commercial banks launching a blockchain-powered customer ID verification platform is the most significant one.

Korea Federation of Banks (KFB) will launch their “BankSign” identity verification system to be used in both online computer-based and mobile banking. According to Korea JoongAng Daily, the move is intended to replace the 20-year old public verification system that is reportedly notorious for its complexity and inefficiency.

Other significant headlines that are leaning on the side of the general sentiment toward cryptocurrencies are those that came from Germany and Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

The German Federal Government has stated that cryptocurrencies do not pose a threat to financial stability, Cointelegraph auf Deutsch reports today, June 12. Nevertheless, the government sees the need for regulatory measures to control digital currencies.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the international group that combats money laundering and terrorism financing, will start developing binding rules for crypto exchanges in June, a Japanese official familiar with the matter told Reuters June 12.

The new rules would be an upgrade to the non-binding resolutions which were adopted by the FATF in June 2015. The FAFT will consider whether existing guidelines on anti-money laundering (AML) measures and reporting suspicious trading activity are still appropriate, and if they can be applied to new exchanges. The intergovernmental organisation will also reportedly investigate how to work with countries who have moved to ban cryptocurrencies.

Source: cointelegraph.com

Analysis

BTC/USD

From yesterday’s opening at 6853$, the price of Bitcoin has decreased by 5.49% and is currently sitting slightly below 6500$.



 

Looking at the hourly chart, we can see that the price is now below 0 Fibonacci retracement level and below the unconfirmed baseline support 2. In my weekly update, I have stated that I would expect the price to continue falling down to these levels, as there was no strong support prior that can hold the momentum. I am expecting the price to go even lower to around the 6000$ area which was the lowest point in this correction before we see some short-term trend reversal.

Market sentiment 

Hourly chart technicals signal a strong sell.

Oscillators are on sell, and moving averages signal a strong one.

Pivot points

S3 5743.2 
S2 6180.5 
S1 6362.2 
P 6617.8 
R1 6799.5 
R2 7055.1 
R3 7492.4

LTC/USD

From yesterday’s opening at 107$, the price of Litecoin has decreased by 11.12% and is currently sitting around 95$.



 

On the hourly chart, we can see that the price of Litecoin is in a straightforward downfall and is going to continue moving in a downward trajectory as there’s no support until the wedge support line (blue dotted line) at 85$, so I am expecting interaction with it soon.

Market sentiment

Litecoin is in the sell zone, as indicated by hourly chart technicals.

Oscillators are one sell, and moving averages signal a strong one.

Pivot points

S3 79.310 
S2 90.506 
S1 95.165
P 101.702 
R1 106.361 
R2 112.898 
R3 124.094

OMG/USD

In the last 24 hours, the price of OmiseGo has declined by 9% – from yesterday’s open at 9.97$ to 9.08$ where it is currently sitting.



 

Looking at the hourly chart we can see that the price found some support at the current levels, but I don’t believe that it will bounce off of it as selling pressure is strong. Most likely, the price is going to continue its downward movement and will interact with the 0 Fibonacci level much like it did in the case of Bitcoin, and form a double bottom at around 8$ level.

Market sentiment

OmiseGO is in the sell zone.

Oscillators are on buy, and moving averages signal a sell.

Pivot points

S3 7.1564 
S2 8.2784 
S1 8.6688 
P 9.4004 
R1 9.7908 
R2 10.5224 
R3 11.6444

ZRX/BTC

From yesterday’s open the price of 0x has decreased by 15% coming from 15542 Satoshi to 13222 Satoshi where is currently sitting.



 

Looking at the daily chart we can see that the price pathway was, as I have projected it would be, in a bearish scenario – the handle pattern is a downward channel and the price fell down to the channel support for a retest.



 

Zooming into the hourly chart we can clearly see the interaction with the channel support – the price is currently below it and is back to retest it for resistance. We will see if the breakout will happen and the price breaks from the cup and handle on the downside, or will it bounce back into the channel range and continue on as I have projected the pathway.

Market sentiment 

Hourly chart technical signal a strong sell.

Oscillators are on sell, and moving averages on a strong one.

Pivot points

S3 0.00010967
S2 0.00012567
S1 0.00013133
P 0.00014167
R1 0.00014733
R2 0.00015767
R3 0.00017367

Conclusion

As the prices of the cryptocurrencies that were covered in this report are still in a downfall with no real support in sight, I conclude that we are in for more downside. We could see a short-term trend reversal if the prices are so low that the potential buyers couldn’t resist not buying.  That’s why I believe that this trend continuation will maybe even be another flash crash, which will spike down to new lows that would exceed prior once, which would in the case of Bitcoin be around 5700$.

Categories
Crypto Market Analysis

OmiseGO Bullish Scenario

OmiseGO (OMG)

Market Cap: $1.65B

Circulating Supply: 102.04M OMG

Max Supply: 0 OMG

Volume (24h) $44.06M

 

OMG/USD is trading in the red on the Daily chart and could resume the corrective phase in the short term. I want to show you a bullish opportunity if the near-term support levels will hold and if it will reject the price.

The crypto is under massive selling pressure on the short term, but a false breakdown below the near-term support levels followed by an important rally will signal that it could increase at least till the 20.0000 psychological level.


 

The rate dropped after the failure to reach the median line (ml) of the ascending pitchfork and after its failure to stabilize above the 50% Fibonacci line of the ascending pitchfork. OMG/USD is pressuring the 38.2% retracement level and could pressure the lower median line (lml) as well very soon.

Personally, I believe that the OmiseGO perspective remains bullish on the short term as long as the rate will stay within the ascending pitchfork’s body. You should know that a valid breakdown below the lower median line will attract more sellers which will send the rate much lower.

It will be very important for the price to make only a false breakdown below the lower median line (lml) and to get back within the ascending pitchfork’s body and above the 38.2% retracement level.

Conclusion

You should stay away for now and wait for a confirmation that the price will increase again after the corrective phase. We’ll have a great buying opportunity if the rate will stay above the lower median line (lml) and only if it will make a valid breakout above the 150% Fibonacci line (descending dotted line).

Categories
Forex Educational Library

Centralized Exchanges And Decentralized Exchanges

Introduction

In this editorial we are going to discuss decentralized exchanges, why they exist or why are they going to exist, what are the advantages, what aren’t people still using them, and we will have an overview of the current projects that are striving to solve these problems.

Centralized exchanges

Let’s start off with explaining how normal (centralized exchanges) work and what’s their purpose. This will serve as an introduction to the problem which decentralized exchanges tend to solve.

Centralized exchanges act as a third party matchmaker between a buyer and a seller of an asset. They are useful because they provide liquidity. What is also important is that this process of trading is speeded up by the convenience of having an account in which you have you deposited funds, which are held by the exchange.

What is liquidity?

>Liquidity describes the degree to which an asset or security can be quickly bought or sold in the market without affecting the asset’s price.

Market liquidity refers to the extent to which a market, such as a country’s stock market or a city’s real estate market, allows assets to be bought and sold at stable prices. Cash is considered the most liquid asset, while real estate, fine art, and collectibles are all relatively illiquid.

Accounting liquidity measures the ease with which an individual or company can meet their financial obligations with the liquid assets available to them. There are several ratios that express accounting liquidity highlighted below.

Source: investopedia.com

The most popular examples of centralized cryptocurrency exchanges are: Coinbase, Kraken, Cex, Bitfinex, Poloniex…

In the cryptocurrency market exchanges are often divided into two types: fiat-crypto gateway (BTC/USD, ETH/USD, LTC/USD…) and altcoins (BTC/ZRX, BTC/DNT, ETH/ADA…)

This is important to point out because later we will discuss some common problems associated with decentralized exchanges (DEX) that are caused by these points.

Decentralized exchanges

Unlike centralized exchanges, DEXs aren’t owned by anyone. Instead, they are constructed on the same distributed ledger technology as Bitcoin and utilize smart contracts for order execution. This is important to point out, as this means that they do not hold funds for their beneficiaries or any other relevant information regarding the identity or location.

Some common examples are: Etherdelta, IDEX, Radar Relay.

Problem – Solution

Centralized exchanges are charging high fees, which is something cryptocurrencies strive to eliminate. They can be hacked which happened numerous time in the past.  They have the ownership of your funds, which is something that’s not aligned with the advantages of cryptocurrencies in general (cryptos take pride in the part that people have control of their own money). Crypto-unfriendly governments can cut or ban their operations. For all the above reasons they are viewed as the weakest link in the cryptocurrency market ecosystem.

That’s why decentralized exchanges are offered as a solution to the listed problems. They cannot be hacked, they cannot be tampered with, they are censorship resistant and do not hold your funds.

While DEXs are more beneficial when it comes to security (from hackers and government interference), anonymity and cost, there are still great challenges that they need to overcome in order to compete with their centralized competition. They are still difficult to use for the common person, as you would have to be crypto/tech savvy; they are somewhat limited in functionality and/or limited on the type of a cryptocurrency (for example only ERC20 tokens), and most importantly they don’t guarantee liquidity.

Having liquidity and a large trading volume is most important because we as traders are all about fast execution. And if you have to wait for hours for your order to get filled, by the time you might get fill you aren’t potentially looking at a good buy or sell opportunity.

Because of this, DEXs haven’t been much used, compared to their centralized counterpart. But there are projects out there that are going to solve that problem as well. In the following paragraphs, we will review most promising DEX projects.

0x Protocol

0x is a protocol. That means it serves as a layer on top of the Ethereum blockchain for actually building decentralized exchange applications. They describe in their whitepaper that 0x is “a protocol that facilitates low friction peer-to-peer exchange of ERC20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. The protocol is intended to serve as an open standard and common building block, driving interoperability among decentralized applications (dApps) that incorporate exchange functionality. Trades are executed by a system of Ethereum smart contracts that are publicly accessible, free to use and that any dApp can hook into. DApps built on top of the protocol can access public liquidity pools or create their own liquidity pool and charge transaction fees on the resulting volume.”

OmiseGo

OmiseGO is a project that incorporates many things, but having in mind the focus of this editorial we are going to point out their dex platform.

“OmiseGO is building a decentralized exchange, liquidity provider mechanism, clearinghouse messaging network, and asset-backed blockchain gateway. OmiseGO is not owned by any single one party. Instead, it is an open distributed network of validators which enforce behavior of all participants. It uses the mechanism of a protocol token to create a proof-of-stake blockchain to enable enforcement of market activity amongst participants. This high-performant distributed network enforces exchange across asset classes, from fiat-backed issuers to fully decentralized blockchain tokens (ERC-20 style and native cryptocurrencies). Unlike nearly all other decentralized exchange platforms, this allows for decentralized exchange of other blockchains and between multiple blockchains directly without a trusted gateway token.”

Source: OmiseGO whitepaper

Airswap

Airswap is similar to 0x in a sense that it will allow users to exchange only ERC20 tokens, and in a sense that it’s a consensus project. The difference is that the transaction on Airswap happens off the chain.

“We present a peer-to-peer methodology for trading ERC20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. First, we outline the limitations of blockchain order books and offer a strong alternative in peer-to-peer token trading: off-chain negotiation and on-chain settlement. We then describe a protocol through which parties are able to signal to others their intent to trade tokens. Once connected, counterparties freely communicate prices and transmit orders among themselves. During this process, parties may request prices from an independent third party oracle to verify accuracy. Finally, we present an Ethereum smart contract to fill orders on the Ethereum blockchain.”

Source: Airswap whitepaper

Kyber Network

Kyber network is my favorite project as they tend to emulate the exact same functionalities and user experience as centralized exchanges.

We design and build KyberNetwork, an on-chain protocol which allows instant exchange and conversion of digital assets (e.g. crypto tokens) and cryptocurrencies (e.g. Ether,
Bitcoin, ZCash) with high liquidity. KyberNetwork will be the first system that implements several ideal operating properties of an exchange including trustless, decentralized execution, instant trade and high liquidity.

The only thing that’s different is that they don’t have the order book in order to finally solve the liquidity issue.

Instead of maintaining a global order book, we maintain a reserve warehouse which holds an appropriate amount of crypto tokens for purposes of maintaining exchange liquidity. The reserve is directly controlled by the Kyber contract, and the contract has a conversion rate for each exchange pair of tokens by fetching from all the reserves. The rates are frequently updated by the reserve managers, and Kyber contract will select the best rate for the users. When a request to convert from token A to token B arrives, the
Kyber contract checks if the correct amount of token A has been credited to the contract, then sends the corresponding amount of token B to the sender’s specified address. The
amount of token A, after the fees, is credited to the reserve that provides the token B.

Source: Kyber Network whitepaper

Conclusion

Having experienced these problems of centralized exchanges early on, cryptocurrency ecosystem has already come up with the solution – decentralized exchange applications. They are still far from perfect but as you can see from these promising examples, some major obstacles are already being solved as well. First generation failed but offered a great insight on how and where to look for progress. That’s the beauty of the free market – problems are being solved and those who can’t compete are left behind.   

Final note

The greatest threat of centralized exchanges aren’t the reasons I’ve listed. The greatest power centralized exchanges have is maker manipulation. They collect so many cryptos through fee’s that they can manipulate the price in many ways. They also have awareness of the order book flow that they can use to their advantage.

Something like that happened on October 8. last year on Bittrex exchange. Even though they denied the accusations of market manipulation, the research done by The CryptoSyndicate Research Lab paint a different story.

For more check out the original post:

https://thecryptosyndicate.com/opinion-bittrex-anomaly/

In the spirit of decentralization which cryptocurrencies carry and promise, in order to achieve taking power back from centralized entities, decentralized exchanges are emerging widely. It is up to us to choose what’s best for us, so I have not doubt in my mind that DEXs will become a new standard in the near future, but only after they offer easy user experience and liquidity.

Having said that, and having in mind the projects that are already out there, “near future” may be sooner than we think.

©Forex.Academy