GM! I’m Jon, and I work on data engineering projects at Origin Protocol. Email marketing isn’t something you’d think would fall under that role. Still, I’ve worked on it extensively over the years, so I was happy to help when we looked to revamp the processes and tools we used for our email marketing strategy.
Most of my previous work on email marketing was in the highly regulated financial services sector, which tends to err on the side of caution and is highly process-driven. Most of our issues were data-related, and building better processes helped our marketing team get back on track quickly. We improved our open rate from ~2% to over 25% and decreased our bounce rate from 5% to 0.01%.
DISCLAIMER: This will not be an in-the-weeds technical document but rather discuss some of our issues, solutions, and high-level approach to email marketing. This document will share some of our processes to help other teams improve their communication strategies or give our community greater visibility into our strategy.
We had some problems with email that are likely familiar to anyone with an extensive mailing list.
Email marketing best practices are well documented online, so we’ll avoid talking about this and skip to discussing the tools and services we landed on when building our stack. From there, we will discuss list hygiene, deliverability, and how we handle email marketing at Origin.
Email validation: ZeroBounce
There are many email validation tools out there. I’ve used ZeroBounce in the past, so it was an obvious choice when we needed to validate our large database of emails. With API access and CSV upload, you can validate on the fly or use this to clean email lists.
Email marketing software billing is on the subscriber level and per email sent. Some plans allow for some quantity of each and then usually charge on some incremental level. You can think of the two components that make up email marketing software as subscriber management and email send servers. Said another way, you have to pay to store email addresses and to send emails to them. If you don’t have a clean subscriber list, you’re wasting money on subscriber storage and emails that bounce or are unread.
Subscriber management: Listmonk
We needed something lightweight and decoupled from the email server for our subscriber management and UI. We had minimal requirements, sending a few update emails per month (more on that below). Listmonk is an open-source tool that handles subscriber management and the email send interface. It offers some simple tools for bounce management, works well out of the box with SendGrid and SES, and provides some API access.
Email send server: Amazon SES
There are many third-party email send service options; you can even host one yourself with Postal. We opted not to deal with running our own email send server and chose to go with Amazon SES. We use AWS for some of our infrastructure at Origin, so SES offered what we were looking for. To provide some isolation from our team emails, we opted to use a subdomain as our send domain.
Rendering tests: Email on Acid
Handling rendering across email clients can be a pain in the ass. Listmonk gives us a lot of flexibility to build our base templates, and we lean into Email on Acid to ensure we’re not missing anything. Many email rendering issues come down to improperly inlined CSS (though not the only reason for poor rendering). You can use a tool like this one from Litmus to help with inlining CSS.
Deliverability tracking: Postmaster
Deliverability can be complicated, so we will cover it in more detail below. Some ESPs are more complicated to track than others (cough, Yahoo, cough), but it’s easier to just look at the data. Almost 75% of our email subscribers have Gmail addresses, with 95.6% of our engaged subscribers using Gmail. Albeit fairly rudimentary, we use Postmaster to keep a high-level view of email performance.
Blacklist monitoring: ZeroBounce
ZeroBounce also provides a free blacklist tool that checks several registries. ZeroBounce is one of many solutions out there, but it works.
These factors aren’t an exhaustive list of all the individual components in our email marketing stack, but it provides enough color for our approach. Additionally, we automate the syncing of different pieces of data, updating subscriber status, and various kinds of reporting.
List hygiene is an essential process in ongoing email marketing efforts. Poor list hygiene leads to higher bounce rates, higher spam rates, lower deliverability, and overall reduces the effectiveness of your email marketing strategy.
A basic definition of email list hygiene is the process of ensuring that the subscribers you plan on sending to in the future are ready and willing to receive your emails.
Previously, we had no standardized process for managing email list hygiene. Recently, I had a chance to set this up properly.
Unless you have a hygiene process, I recommend scrubbing (validating) your list of subscriber emails. Assuming you have an ongoing hygiene strategy, you generally only need to rerun a validation process if you add large lists of new subscribers. The way this process works is that the provider handling the validation will run a series of tests on each email in your subscriber list.
A non-exhaustive list of these tests includes mailbox status, inbox quota, spam traps, abuse checks, and catchalls. The goal of these checks is to make sure you’re sending to an active inbox, your email isn’t going to bounce, the subscriber inbox is not full, and the subscriber quality is sufficient.
At Origin, we use ZeroBounce to validate large subscriber lists and for real-time email subscriber validation. Many other providers offer this service, and many email marketing tools can also handle this. Depending on your list size, this can run anywhere from $0.001 to $0.01 per email. It can get expensive for larger email list sizes, but it’s a necessary investment when introducing new emails.
You can upload a CSV of your subscriber list and receive some classification data for your list. After this, you can filter out emails that don’t meet your internal criteria. We remove catchalls, spam traps, abusers, dead mailboxes, and flag subscribers over their quota for reintroduction in the future.
The work doesn’t stop when you’re past the new subscriber stage. Bounces are a signal that gives you some insight into your email subscribers. Bounces come in two flavors: hard and soft bounces and a wide range of bounce statuses that can be specific to the recipient's email server.
Listmonk offers some tools to handle bounces automatically. Our standard process is to permanently remove any subscribers with a hard bounce and allow for 2-3 soft bounces before temporarily removing subscribers. Subscribers that soft bounce are periodically re-added to our send list and permanently removed if they receive a block a second time.
Subscriber engagement can be one of the more challenging things to execute regarding email marketing. It’s not because it’s difficult, but we tend to want to keep every single email we’ve ever collected and make sure we send it to the largest list possible.
At a certain point, you need to break up with your subscribers. Generally, we look at subscriber engagement over 3, 6 and 12 months to see what users have fallen off. When subscribers do not engage with us over a certain period, they get temporarily removed from our regular sends. This process is helpful to improve overall engagement rates and make sure we’re limiting our messages to the people interacting with our communication in some form. Access to your email inbox is a privilege we don’t take lightly. We’re always here when subscribers are ready to engage again.
When we reworked our strategy, we decided to start from scratch. We would isolate our marketing communication from our team domain, giving us the flexibility to move quickly.
I won’t cover the standard operating procedures (you can Google that) around email warmup other than to say, make sure you’re monitoring your metrics while ramping up send volumes slowly and steadily.
We monitor several different factors to assess the health and effectiveness of our email marketing. This list is not exhaustive, but at a high level, it outlines what we are most concerned about.
The following five factors are our primary areas of concern:
Spam rate: Most email send services provide data on spam rates. Not all ESPs report spam rates back to the service provider. You can review this for Gmail using Postmaster.
Target: <= 0.05%
Bounce rate: Like spam rate, this is usually reported by your send provider. It is generally available as part of many email marketing tools. Ideally, this will distinguish between hard and soft bounces.
Target: <= 0.05%
Open rate: We look at the unique open rate as this best reflects performance on a subscriber level. It helps us answer what percentage of our subscriber list looks at our emails.
Target: >= 21.5%
Unsubscribe rate: Unsubscribes is the normal course of business when sending emails. If an unsubscribe rate is too high, it signals a misalignment between the subscriber and the content. Taking long breaks between sends, low-quality content, and using questionable lists can all contribute to a higher-than-desired unsubscribe rate.
Target: <= 0.1%
Blacklists: How ISPs/ESPs use blacklists is not always clear, but you should aim to never end up on one. These third-party databases receive feedback from service providers and are looking for high spam rates or abnormal levels of send volume. The above factors influence these final two factors.
Target: 0
These final two factors are influenced by the above factors. If you monitor and measure your primary factors frequently, you don't need to monitor the following regularly.
Domain reputation: Outside of monitoring blacklists, we review our domain reputation weekly. Domain reputation is like an email marketing credit score, and it helps us react to changes if necessary.
Target: Medium/High (Postmaster)
IP reputation: Depending on your send volumes and overall strategy, you will use a shared or dedicated IP. In both cases, it’s worth monitoring your IP reputation. Due to the high occurrence of Gmail addresses, we check in on Postmaster weekly.
Target: Medium/High (Postmaster)
Email marketing is one of many tools for communication. It’s a cost-effective way for us to keep the conversation going with our community regularly.
We believe our subscribers should always control their relationship with our email marketing. We honor all unsubscribes and make it easy to opt out of marketing communication. We never share our subscriber list and focus on sending high-value updates about Origin Protocol.
Every month, the Origin team publishes an update to our token holders and the broader community. We hope you enjoy our December 2023 edition.
We’re pulling back the curtains on OGN – get ready for an exciting start to 2024.
With upgrades to Origin DeFi and a revamped OGN coming on the horizon, we’re ending 2023 focused on delivering even more value to our token holders. In December, we launched a new frontend for OUSD, joined EigenLayer’s restaking ecosystem, and teased our new unified dapp that will host OGV governance, OETH, and OUSD all in one place. Some other developments from December include:
At the same time, our most seasoned developers and leadership team came together to work on adding new utility and mechanics to Origin Token (OGN). We’ve made significant progress in December, and a major announcement regarding OGN is slated for next month.
Our devs haven't touched grass in months – get ready for a supercharged OGN in 2024.
You might have sensed it already – an exciting development for OGN is just around the corner. Our team has been working diligently behind the scenes to catalyze new value for OGN.
Considerable progress has already been made, and we are eagerly preparing to share the big news with you.
The upcoming launch in 2024 will significantly improve OGN tokenomics and supercharge the token’s utility beyond our Origin Story marketplaces. While Season 5 OGN staking is currently paused, an exciting new value-accrual mechanism is in the works.
As we step into this new era, we invite you to join us and follow along for updates. More to come.
December marked another month of growth for the Origin DeFi DAO. OGV stakers were rewarded with two OGV buybacks in December, amounting to 4.37 million OGV being redistributed to stakers. Alongside these buybacks, over 10,000 CVX was acquired by the Origin DeFi DAO last month. Impressively, the Origin DeFi DAO saw an approximate 21% increase in revenue from November to December.
We’re delighted to see that the DAO’s growing revenue numbers are getting noticed by accounts on Twitter, including Alex Wacy and Crypto Nova. A few threads on OGV went viral last month, which led to hundreds of new OGV holders and stakers. As we continue to improve our reach, we’re excited to find new ways to reward our growing community.
With over 80% of OGV’s supply staked, the vast majority of tokens remain locked in the Origin DeFi DAO. Along with governance rights over crucial protocol upgrades, OGV stakers can earn up to 28.2% vAPY on their tokens.
Also in December, our community got a sneak peek at a brand new dapp for OETH, OUSD, and OGV. For the first time, OGV will live alongside Origin Ether and Origin Dollar, helping increase its discoverability among our OToken holders.
By merging Origin’s products into one ecosystem, users will be able to manage their OTokens, swap and stake OGV, and vote on DAO proposals all through the same dapp. Furthermore, the dapp provides new pages for OToken yield, analytics, and staking metrics. The new Origin DeFi dapp is slated to launch early next year, so stay tuned to our Twitter for more updates.
Extra rewards tokens and AMO rebalances earned OETH holders higher yield in December.
Origin Ether’s 30-day trailing APY sat comfortably above 6% for the majority of December, marking a 150 basis point increase from the 30-day trailing APY at the end of November. Around 50 basis points can be attributed to BAL and AURA tokens harvested from the rETH/WETH Balancer strategy. Additionally, the OETH AMO was able to profit from an imbalance in the OETH-ETH Curve pool, netting a daily APY over 25% on December 13th.
Origin Dollar’s 30-day trailing APY neared 6% in December, up around 80 basis points from the previous month. The majority of collateral is currently being used within the Morpho Aave and Morpho Compound strategies, while the majority of Origin Dollar’s DAI collateral earns yield via MakerDAO’s DSR. Not only does Morpho provide higher capital efficiency for OUSD collateral, but the Origin DeFi DAO has been able to earn a substantial allocation to future MORPHO tokens.
Also in December, Origin Ether’s Dripper was upgraded, increasing the distribution time for harvested yield from 3 days to 14 days. By dripping these funds over a 2-week period, OETH yield becomes more predictable and less volatile. After the upgrade passed governance, the Dripper began distributing BAL and AURA rewards from Origin Ether’s first Balancer farming strategy.
Last month, Origin Ether earned its largest integration yet with its listing on EigenLayer. Just two days after re-opening deposits, EigenLayer surpassed $1 billion in TVL, and over 11,300 OETH has been restaked on the platform. EigenLayer enables restaking of OETH, which will eventually let users earn staking rewards from multiple networks. Currently, EigenLayer users are earning restaking points, which have caused the community to speculate on a future airdrop.
OETH recently achieved another major integration, becoming an approved collateral source on tai.money following a successful governance proposal. This integration unlocks new liquidity for our token holders, as OETH holders can now borrow against their Origin Ether while continuing to earn yield.
Excitingly, we're also expanding the utility of OGN, OETH, OUSD, and OGV through a new integration with Donorship. This allows token holders to support over 1,000 charities, including Crisis Text Line, American Cancer Society, PAWS, and Saving Nature.
To cap off this month's ecosystem updates, Origin's tokens are now supported assets on the Coin98 wallet. Additionally, we integrated Origin’s tokens with other key wallets like Ramper and StrikeX, significantly broadening global user access and convenience.
We’re expanding globally, and we’ve begun our search for our next giga-brain Solidity developer.
Origin is excited to announce that we added two new Community Managers to our team last month. Kevin.btc will lead our efforts in the Vietnam region, while Zyaad Labib will be the first Community Manager to pioneer Origin’s Dubai/MENA community which you can follow on their new Twitter and Telegram channels.
In December, Origin’s regional accounts hosted a series of AMAs, spotlighting Origin's innovative products and deepening our global connections. Highlights include the Spanish team's AMA with Atani that attracted over 4000 participants, and Origin China joining Frax for an AMA on how OETH uses sfrxETH to earn higher yields. Around the same time, our Head of BD Amit Patel joined a Twitter Spaces roundtable with several leaders in DeFi, including yearn.finance.
Wrapping up the month, our co-founders Matt and Josh were busy at Taipei Blockchain Week events, speaking at both Sora Summit and the Curve Finance Summit to share their insights into web3 infrastructure, LSTs, and OETH's potential in rehypothecation for protocols. Keep an eye out for their talks to be posted soon!
On the recruiting front, we’re looking to hire a Senior Smart Contract Engineer with a focus on protocol security. The ideal candidate has experience overseeing the development of smart contracts that hold significant value, and they must have a deep understanding of smart contract security. Sound like someone you know? Send them our way, and if they join the team, we’ll make it worth your while!
That’s all for now! We look forward to sharing more information about OGN’s new product with you in the near future. For real-time updates, be sure to join our Discord and follow us on Twitter. In the meantime, we invite you to read up on our blog to learn more about the new developments made in December.
The purpose of developing software is to get it to perform as intended. Multiple test iterations are required to achieve that, and the time between iterations is of critical importance when trying to complete the task at hand as soon as possible.
At Origin, we use unit & fork tests for development. Running fork tests can be tediously slow, but we’ve managed to reduce the execution time of fork tests (in some cases) by a factor of 4. Through this article I’ll explain how you can improve the speed of your fork tests, so that you can get your code working as intended in no time.
Typically, whether you use a fork test or unit test depends on the architecture of the protocol being developed. Some teams only use unit tests and some both unit and fork tests. At Origin, our contracts interact with several 3rd party protocols (Curve, Uniswap, Balancer, Convex…) and mistakes in integration can cause catastrophic loss of funds.
Using unit tests, we mock the 3rd party protocol’s ABI and test that our contracts programmatically correctly integrate. But to test a 3rd party protocol’s behavior with all the intricacies and various (legitimate or manipulated) states the protocol can be in is where fork tests shine. And for some engineers on our team, test-driven development using fork tests is the primary development mode. Reducing the “code change” to “test execution” time is essential.
At Origin, we are using Hardhat for our Solidity development stack. It’s important that we understand the various steps a fork test run consists of in order to reduce development cycle time. For simplicity, we shall be running only 1 fork test at a time - which is usually the approach when working on a smart contract.
The slowest approach is to run the fork tests with node forking from the latest block. This way, each time tests are run a different block height is chosen, and hardhat isn’t able to do any caching by reading storage slots from the main-net provider. This is reflected in the slow 101 second execution speed.
This particular fork test sends funds to one of our liquidity mining strategies that deploys assets to a Balancer pool. That causes a great deal of storage slot reads and is the main cause of the slow “test” part of the execution (orange part of the bar above).
The obvious low-hanging fruit is to fix the block height so that Hardhat can save a great deal of time by utilizing a local cache of storage slot reads. The compile time isn’t affected by this optimization, but all other steps are. Greatly reducing the cycle time to 27 seconds (this applies to all non first runs of the test, where the hardhat cache is already warmed up).
The above approach improves the situation significantly, but it is still far from the speed of unit tests and can still seem frustratingly slow at times. We have only changed one contract. Why do we need to re-run the same deployments and post-deployment when ideally just the byte-code of 1 (or more) solidity contracts needs changing? Given that, of course, we are not changing storage slot layout or state between compilations. Enter hot deploys.
Hot-deploy deploys the contract that is being altered and fetches its byte-code. Using hardhat test suite snapshots, it finds the previous version of that contract in a state before the tests were run and replaces its byte-code with the freshly compiled one. On top of that, it runs the test fixtures and the test itself, skipping all the (post) deployment steps.
The cycle time is now reduced to just 7 seconds. This change in the development cycle has helped Origin Protocol greatly improve the productivity and speed at which we can develop features.
Unfortunately, the hot deploys cannot be turned on as a switch (at least not yet) and require some configuration. The way we have implemented the solution at Origin is as follows:
An important requirement is that a standalone hardhat node is running separately from the fork test environment. It might not be immediately obvious, but fork test run will create another node runtime and use the other standalone running node as a provider. The standalone node will run all (post) deployments, and the fork test node will compile the changes, run test fixtures replacing any contract byte-code required, and finally run the test.
It’s good to keep in mind changes to the deployment files, contract storage slots, and their state set up. You should consider this running test fixtures require a restart of the standalone node.
Sometimes we can be tempted to use unit tests for parts of the platform that integrate with 3rd party protocols just to be able to develop faster… at the cost of additional security a fork test can provide. For developers at Origin, hot deploys are an important step to bridge that cycle time gap and try to have our cake and eat it too. I hope others try this, and I hope you can benefit from this approach to reduce your development cycle times.
Greetings, I'm Antoine, a seasoned senior engineer currently with Origin. With a robust 15-year tenure in the Frontend domain, my expertise lies in crafting scalable and maintainable applications. I embarked on my journey in the web2 landscape, where I had the pleasure of delving into a myriad of stacks and frameworks, allowing me to play and experiment with diverse technologies. I settled on React and its vibrant ecosystem, and, for the past two years, I've transitioned into the dynamic realm of web3. In this article, I'll be shedding light on the key differentiators I've observed between these two ecosystems, offering insights into the evolving landscape of web development.
The digital landscape is constantly evolving, and the transition from Web2 to Web3 represents a paradigm shift in the way we approach frontend development. Web2 has long been synonymous with user experience (UX) and search engine optimization (SEO), while Web3 places a primary focus on privacy and decentralized technologies. In this article, we will dive into the key differences between Web2 and Web3 frontend development techniques, highlighting the pivotal aspects of each approach.
Web2 development prioritizes providing an exceptional user experience and optimizing websites for search engines. It involves creating fast, interactive, and visually appealing interfaces. SEO is critical in Web2, as it ensures websites rank high in search engine results, attracting more organic traffic.
On the other hand, Web3 emphasizes user privacy as a core tenet. Privacy is achieved by reducing the amount of user data collected and stored on centralized servers. User information is controlled by the users themselves, often through blockchain-based identity solutions. This not only protects user data, but it also offers transparency about how the data is used.
In the Web3 landscape, companies and developers are moving away from tracking users and collecting excessive data for advertising purposes, making user privacy a paramount concern.
Web2 traditionally relies on Server-Side Rendering (SSR) and traditional web servers to deliver content. SSR generates HTML on the server and sends it to the client, ensuring fast loading times and improved SEO. However, it can be resource-intensive and less scalable.
Web3, in contrast, embraces decentralized technologies like the Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) to serve static content. IPFS allows content to be distributed across a peer-to-peer network, ensuring data redundancy and reducing the risk of data loss. This approach aligns with the decentralized principles of Web3, providing improved resilience and ensuring content remains accessible even if a single server or node goes down.
Web2 applications commonly fetch data from centralized APIs using protocols like REST, GraphQL, or gRPC. These protocols enable seamless communication between the frontend and backend, allowing for data retrieval, real-time updates, and interactions with databases and external services.
In Web3, on-chain data retrieval takes center stage. Decentralized applications (dapps) interact with smart contracts on blockchain networks through RPC (Remote Procedure Call) providers. These RPC providers serve as gateways to the blockchain, enabling the frontend to query and display data from the blockchain. This approach enhances transparency and security by enabling users to verify the data's source.
Web3 and Web2 frontend development techniques each have their unique strengths and priorities. Web2 excels in providing exceptional user experiences and optimizing for SEO, whereas Web3 centers on user privacy, decentralized technologies, and on-chain data retrieval.
At Origin, we try to avoid all dogmatic decisions; nothing is good enough nor too complex to apply to our way of thinking and crafting software. The goal is always to deliver the best experience for our users while keeping a fast delivery pace and not make any sacrifice on security.
The transition from Web2 to Web3 is not just a choice between one or the other but a recognition of the need to strike a balance between user experience, privacy, and the adoption of decentralized technologies. Developers and organizations must consider these factors when designing web applications and adapt to the evolving landscape to meet the needs and expectations of users in this new era of the internet. As technology continues to advance, frontend developers must remain adaptable and ready to embrace the opportunities and challenges presented by Web3.
Co-founding Origin has been one of the most impactful and fulfilling decisions I’ve ever made. Reflecting on the past six years, it’s humbling to take stock of how far we’ve come. When I first invested in crypto back in 2012, I had an inkling of blockchain’s potential. However, I could never have predicted the blistering trajectory that has taken the space to over $1T in market cap in a decade. I’ve been blessed to play my small part in furthering the space with Origin’s various products.
There are few experiences as richly rewarding as building in crypto. Between sleepless nights, black swans, and bull runs, this space is highly unpredictable but always stimulating. I have learned an immense amount and picked up invaluable insights that will guide me through the rest of my career as an entrepreneur and builder.
While it would be impossible to condense all these lessons into a single post, a few learnings have been fundamental in shaping my vision.
In its first iteration, Origin Protocol allowed anyone to buy or sell anything on-chain. My cofounder Josh and I set out to disrupt Web2 marketplaces with the aspiration of allowing anyone to buy or sell any real-world asset on-chain.
However, we quickly learned that it was not very practical for the time. The marketplace protocol we were building was too early; Ethereum was still in its very nascent stages. The user base and user experiences were too immature to scale the exchange of goods and services other than purely digital crypto assets.
Disruptive ideas are built off of enabling technologies. These building blocks serve as the foundation that then opens up the “adjacent possible”.
Today, through a series of pivots, we've evolved our sets of products to be more complementary with existing crypto natives that are in the space – the early adopters that are transacting and using crypto well ahead of the mainstream. Over time, it’s become increasingly clear that it's too early to focus on mainstream use cases. When you try to serve everyone, you end up serving no one.
Paul Graham talks about well-shaped ideas, and Chris Dixon is a proponent of building products that serve as the thin edge of the wedge. These are all ways of saying the same thing. Instead, we should be focusing on highly motivated users that have urgent problems to solve today.
Since DeFi Summer, we’ve seen hundreds of protocols fall by the wayside chasing yield while neglecting risks. Spinning up high-yield projects is easy, the real challenge lies in ensuring longevity.
2022 showed us the dangers of short-sighted greed. The multi-billion dollar implosions that rocked the market saw many investors lose their life savings to exploits, malpractice, and unsustainable mechanics.
Building a strong foundation means being proactive about security and sustainability.
With Origin DeFi, we strive to uphold crypto’s most crucial tenets. The team has done tremendous work to create robust and rewarding yield platforms with zero compromise. Thanks to rigorous audits and tireless effort, OUSD is one of only six digital assets to claim a AAA rating from InsurAce. Both OUSD and OETH are open-source, decentralized, and non-custodial, offering users maximum transparency into their mechanics.
Working in blockchain teaches you quickly that there’s no room for complacency. Proactive mechanics have made our flagship products highly insulated from black swan events. These failsafes have shielded our users from many unexpected events, such as April’s USDC depeg.
Origin’s diverse, global audience is a massive point of pride.
Despite starting Origin in 2017, we chose not to do an ICO in the traditional sense. Instead we had an advisor round, which acted as our seed round. Following that, we had a strategic round which served as our series A. We intentionally wanted to raise from a very global and diverse set of investors.
We also didn't want any particular token purchaser to have an outsized share and control of the protocol because we wanted it to be sufficiently decentralized. We manually onboarded over 200+ entities and individual purchasers with full KYC/AML and accreditation. Overall, around 800+ entities and individuals joined the round before our token launched.
Since then, we’ve cultivated thriving regional communities around the world, with regular international events and multilingual content.
This diversity is crucial to understanding user needs and gaining unique insights into opportunities and pressing challenges facing ordinary people. This is especially important since much of the projected future growth in crypto will be in regions like South America, Africa, and other regions that can leap frog traditional financial systems and infrastructure. Our team of talented community managers actively cultivates regional communities, presenting invaluable feedback for further innovation.
Attaining global reach is no small undertaking, but the challenge has been immensely rewarding. Siloing your audience to a specific region only hinders potential, especially in a space built to serve everyone.
Realizing that our initial vision for Origin was too early for the tech was a tough pill to swallow. However, moments like this empowered us to adopt a culture of rapid adaptability.
Crypto is a constantly shifting industry. When you’re competing with a cohort of relentless visionaries, remaining lightweight is essential. Much of the infrastructure we take for granted today simply did not exist back in 2017.
We’ve learned that if you want to remain at the forefront, you need to constantly evolve along with the space. This principle allowed us to take liquid staking by the horns with Origin Ether. In a few months, we brought an incisive product to market that continues to deliver incredible value for users. Today, Origin Ether is approaching $100M of TVL while delivering higher risk-adjusted yields than the top liquid staking tokens like stETH, rETH, and frxETH.
If a product is serving you more than your users, it’s time to revisit why you build in the first place.
From the outset, we planned with a focus on the future. Projects that chase short-term hype burn through their runway and end up rudderless. Our commitment to building enduring products has driven us to create a strong foundation for sustained success.
Value creation and value capture oftentimes happen in the later years of a company or project. They often happen in years 7, 8, 9, and beyond. That’s what’s really exciting to me about the future. In the next cycle, there will be new users and institutions entering the market. This means there is ample opportunity to engage with these new customer segments and an inflow of capital.
It’s going to require some zigging and zagging on the way, but I’m very bullish on focusing on this long-term, compounded growth in this upcoming cycle and beyond.
One of the most exciting things about being in this industry is the unknowns. As entrepreneurs, we all like to paint a vision for the future, but the most impactful innovations are often the most unexpected.
Oftentimes I think about how some iconic entrepreneurs have approached their companies.
When they first got started it was not immediately obvious that they were going to build these transformative, generationally impactful companies. Meta is a searing example. In his early days, Mark Zuckerberg’s main goal was to build a college directory. He had no idea he would end up building the world’s social graph, a robust developer platform that powers millions of apps and the foundations of the metaverse.
Armed with the lessons we’ve learned thus far, Origin is ready to tackle fresh challenges head-on as we clear the path to mass adoption. And until that path has been cleared with tangible benefits and real-world impact, we build.
Origin Ether’s versatile utility is expanding even further with a brand new EigenLayer integration!
Last month, holders came out in force to support OETH during EigenLayer’s voting campaign. As a result, OETH will be available as a restaking asset on the platform starting Monday, 18th December at 10 am PT.
OETH joins six other LSTs as newly listed restaking assets on EigenLayer. To cater to this increased demand, Eigenlayer’s existing cap on deposits is being raised to 200K per LST. However, a pause mechanism will take effect when the total LST TVL hits 500K in assets.
These caps have been implemented to ensure a smooth rollout that prioritizes protocol security. Given that EigenLayer’s feature set is being opened to a far larger audience on Monday, it’s possible that these caps could be met relatively quickly.
Should you wish to restake OETH, it’s vital to monitor EigenLayer flows to ensure that you can deposit before maximum thresholds are reached.
OETH’s rapidly growing ecosystem empowers holders to harness instruments at the forefront of on-chain innovation. With EigenLayer support, the community can now partake in the emerging sector of Ethereum restaking.
Pioneered by EigenLayer, restaking brings ETH’s formidable security base to new networks with less resources. Users can restake LSTs and staked ETH via the protocol, which new projects can utilize to bootstrap their development.
These projects will incentivize restakers to secure their networks, allowing users to earn extra rewards on top of Ethereum’s proof of stake staking rewards.
While restaking carries many benefits, it’s important to keep in mind that restaking heightens slashing risk by exposing staked ETH assets to multiple networks, which each carry their own set of rules. However, restakers are compensated for this risk with heightened rewards.
Check out our restaking guide to learn more and get involved!
Origin DeFi is on a path to become one of blockchain’s most integral money legos. Discover the ecosystem:
OGN staking season 4 closed on November 3rd, 2023 at midnight UTC. Users who have staked OGN via Origin Story or the previous legacy staking contract can follow the steps below to withdraw their funds.
Withdrawals from Origin Story staking or the previous legacy contract can be conducted directly through this legacy unstaking tool.
Alternatively, OGN can be withdrawn from legacy staking directly via the smart contract. Please take special care when interacting with the contract to ensure that your funds are returned safely.
First, navigate to the OGN staking contract on Etherscan:
https://etherscan.io/address/0x501804b374ef06fa9c427476147ac09f1551b9a0
Confirm the contract address, which should be 0x501804b374ef06fa9c427476147ac09f1551b9a0
On Etherscan, select the Contract tab.
Choose “Write as Proxy”. Connect your wallet to the site by selecting the “Connect to Web3” button.
Next, click on “exit” – the third option displayed on the page. Click the “Write” button under the exit tab to initiate the withdrawal.
This will prompt your Web3 wallet. Confirm the requests in your wallet to confirm the withdrawal.
Once the transaction has been confirmed, your staked holdings should reflect in your wallet. This method exits all possible stakes and withdraws your OGN from the contract.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch via our Discord server should you have any questions!
In the evolving digital landscape, businesses and developers are constantly seeking the most effective tools for tracking and analyzing data. At Origin, we’ve been using Google Analytics as the go-to solution for monitoring web-based interactions, but blockchain technology introduces a compelling alternative: tracking transactions on-chain. This approach offers unique benefits, particularly around accuracy and transparency.
The basic premise behind tracking referrals on-chain is to append some extra bytes to the calldata of any transaction originating from a decentralized app (dapp) that you control. The extra bytes do not typically interfere with the contract call (though there are exceptions), but it does increase the gas cost of the transaction by a minuscule amount.
These extra bytes are stored on-chain and are visible on Etherscan or on any other indexer. In Origin’s case, we use Subsquid to tag transactions that have calldata ending with a known byte array, so that we know which transactions originated from our dapp.
This technique has been used by NFT marketplaces for some time and is how transaction volume can be attributed to aggregators like Blur or Gem. NFT infrastructure projects like Reservoir have built the functionality directly into their SDK, though the technique isn’t yet common within DeFi.
Implementing an on-chain referrer system is a relatively simple process, but there are a few key considerations. You’ll need to decide what kind of attribution to use (first touch vs. last touch), and how you’ll store the data. Here’s how I set up an on-chain referral system for Origin Protocol.
Here’s how it works from start to finish:
Advantages of On-Chain Tracking
Potential Limitations
On-chain referral tracking offers some compelling advantages over traditional tracking mechanisms, such as its immutability, transparency, and resistance to common web tracking issues. While it does come with its own set of challenges, including increased gas costs and potential incompatibilities, the benefits likely outweigh these limitations and the technique is worth considering as an alternative.
Every month, the Origin team publishes an update to our token holders and the broader community. We hope you enjoy our November 2023 edition.
DAO proposals, DeFi integrations, and a growing user base. November gave us a lot to be thankful for!
Welcome to Origin's November Token Holder Update! Last month, we saw major steps forward within Origin’s ecosystem, characterized by influential DAO proposals, significant traction for OGV, and an exciting upcoming listing with Eigenlayer.
The Origin DeFi DAO voted on several key upgrades, passing new proposals and executing two OGV buybacks. Following the OGV buyback proposal, these tokenomics upgrades caught the attention of Crypto Twitter, leading to a surge in OGV holders and heightened interest in OETH. Additionally, Origin Ether (OETH) set records with its highest-yielding day and expanded its reach through winning an integration with EigenLayer.
Origin Token (OGN) extended its utility with notable listings and integrations, increasing its accessibility worldwide. This expansion underscores our ongoing efforts to enhance OGN's utility and accessibility across platforms.
On the NFT front, Origin Story continues its alignment with industry leaders and innovators that redefine the potential of NFTs. Our partnership with key players like Pudgy Penguins and Roofstock OnChain exemplifies our drive to merge NFTs with real-world utility.
As we wrap up an eventful November, join us in this update as we delve into:
Upcoming rewards tokens, new governance proposals, and Crypto Twitter talking about OGV. Check it out!
Origin DeFi’s ecosystem continued to grow stronger in November. Continuing its progress, the Origin DeFi DAO passed new proposals for funds management, new yield strategies, and collateral reallocations. Also last month, OETH had its highest yield earning day, and Crypto Twitter caught wind of OGV. Let’s take a closer look at these developments below.
Origin DeFi Governance (OGV) gained new momentum in November. Following the successful OGV buyback proposal, over 45 ETH in fees has accrued to the Origin DeFi DAO. Crypto Twitter quickly picked up on our new value-accrual mechanism, as influencers published in-depth analyses on Origin DeFi’s ecosystem. Thanks to this increased exposure, OGV gained hundreds of new holders, and OETH became top-of-mind in the realm of LSTfi.
The smart contract responsible for OGV buybacks was upgraded last month, setting the groundwork for further automation and increased transparency. The contract hardcoded the 50/50 split between OGV buybacks and CVX accumulation, eliminating the need to rely on strategists. The contract also ensures that all DAO-owned CVX is vote-locked to further boost OETH yield.
The Origin DeFi DAO passed more proposals in November, including a funds management proposal that sets a framework for how OETH collateral is managed. The proposal enables more predictability for yield strategy and collateral allocations, and it lays the groundwork for further automation for yield optimization.
Origin Ether’s Balancer strategy has started collecting AURA and BAL rewards, which have accrued to the contract since deploying funds to the rETH/WETH pool in October. Paired with the profitable adjustment to the Curve AMO on November 19th, trailing 30-day yields on OETH have increased over 50 bps in November.
Origin Dollar has maintained a trailing 30-day APY of 4.85% in November, thanks to collateral reallocations that take advantage of heightened USDC rates on Morpho Aave. The MakerDAO DSR and Morpho make up the vast majority of strategy allocations, with USDC being the highest allocated stablecoin at 40%.
Origin Ether continues to expand to the hottest DeFi protocols, and OGN gets listed on new dapps.
On November 9th, EigenLayer announced that OETH won their listing competition. As such, OETH will be listed on the platform as a restaking asset. Enabling boosted rewards via restaking, EigenLayer has seen huge demand from DeFi users. EigenLayer’s total value locked sits at over 160,000 ETH, even as the protocol set caps for the amount of LSTs deposited into their smart contracts.
The upcoming EigenLayer integration is a huge win for Origin Ether. As demand for restaking continues to grow, these users will now have access to earn compounded rewards through Origin Ether restaking.
Those looking to leverage their OETH now have the opportunity to do so through Interest Protocol, a money market for interest-bearing assets. Users can deposit their OETH to take out loans in USDCi, allowing them to unlock liquidity while earning yield on OETH.
Similarly, OGN has broadened its presence through several integrations across DeFi. In recent weeks, OGN has been added to Koala Wallet, enhancing user experience by providing users the convenient ability to securely manage OGN within their app. Additionally, OGN has expanded its reach into the world of DeFi analytics with a De.Fi integration. De.Fi is a comprehensive portfolio tracker known for its suite of innovative and user-friendly tools.
Looking forward, Origin is dedicated to further advancing the accessibility and utility of OGN. We’re strategically focusing on key integrations to ensure that OGN is increasingly available across platforms, thereby strengthening its positioning in the broader digital asset landscape.
Our partners are rethinking the way NFTs are used; here’s what could be next for the industry.
November brought a refreshing surge of activity to the NFT market, which had experienced a period of relative quiet in the preceding months. In a recent discussion with TheNewsCrypto, Josh Fraser, co-founder of Origin, shared insightful perspectives on the future of the NFT space. He reaffirmed Origin's steadfast belief in the long-term potential of NFTs and expressed confidence in the market's resurgence.
However, he also noted that the nature of this revival might differ from the patterns observed in the previous bull market, suggesting a possible evolution in the way NFTs are perceived and utilized.
Origin Story has been working to innovate and adapt to the rapidly changing trends of the market as we approach the end of 2023. Our previous endeavors have spanned from assisting artists and celebrities in launching their NFTs, complete with extraordinary prizes that go beyond the digital, including real-life experiences and tangible items, to spearheading groundbreaking sales. Notable examples include the record-setting $2.3 million Macallan Whiskey Cask sale and the staggering $11.7 million auction for 3lau’s Ultraviolet Vinyl NFT drop.
Our collaborations extend to empowering creative visions for entities like Pudgy Penguins and 0N1 Force. Moreover, our partnership with Roofstock OnChain aims to disrupt the traditional real estate markets, valued at $11 trillion, by facilitating property sales through NFTs.
At Origin, we pride ourselves on being at the vanguard of advancing NFT technology. Our commitment to innovation and our ability to anticipate and lead market trends underscore our role in shaping the future of NFTs and their real-world applications.
Check out the latest yield opportunities, staking updates, and tokenomics data for Origin’s tokens.
OGN volume has increased alongside a broader market resurgence, and the number of token holders surpassed 45,500 in November. Additionally, OGN is available across more than 50 centralized and decentralized exchanges, including the most popular platforms like Coinbase, Binance, and Uniswap.
At Origin, our strategic focus is firmly set on cultivating long-term value. We prioritize sustainable growth and robust utility for OGN over fleeting speculative gains. This approach ensures that our developments are aligned with the enduring success and evolution of the Origin ecosystem.
OGV staking rates remain strong, with nearly 80% of the total supply staked. Stakers have accrued extra OGV rewards from buybacks, with current APYs ranging up to 27.6%. As a reminder, OGV buybacks and CVX purchases occur every two weeks; the last event happened on November 22nd. During the last buyback, 1.9 million OGV and 3,990 CVX were purchased using OToken performance fees.
OGV liquidity has improved on DEXs, and the OGV holder base grew significantly in November. It’s important to note that higher OGV values impact OETH yield, creating a flywheel effect. As OGV increases in value, Curve bribes become more impactful, which leads to higher OETH yield and more revenue generation for the Origin DeFi DAO. 3
November was a bustling month for the Origin community and team, marked by a series of engaging and insightful events.
Throughout the month, Origin actively participated in various Twitter Spaces, showcasing the depth and diversity of our initiatives. Notably, our BD Manager Peter Gray contributed his expertise in sessions with VaultCraft, DIA, and Koala Wallet, bringing valuable insights to the table. Simultaneously, our Senior Community Manager, Brighton To, delved into the nuances of community building by hosting TaskOn on Twitter Spaces during our campaign. This collaboration with TaskOn's platform successfully introduced new members to Origin across our online communities.
In a dynamic collaboration with Curvance, we provided our community members a unique opportunity to engage with our community rewards program in our Discord. By earning the 'explorer' role, members gain access to Curvance’s incentivized testnet.
Also last month, Origin’s co-founder Josh Fraser graced TheNewsCrypto’s podcast, discussing pivotal topics like digital ownership, liquid staking, and DeFi security. The insights shared there are available in a detailed transcript, offering our community a deeper understanding of these critical subjects.
Lastly, we launched a new Zealy sprint, active until mid-January. This initiative invites our community members to participate in tasks, accumulate points, and ascend the leaderboard. The top 20 participants will be rewarded with token prizes, with the top prize being $250 in Origin Ether, fostering a spirit of healthy competition and engagement.
As we close another eventful month, our commitment to fostering a vibrant, knowledgeable, and connected Origin community remains stronger than ever.
That’s all for November! We hope to see you back here in January for our December Token Holder Update, where we’ll cover Origin’s accomplishments in 2023. In the meantime, we invite you to join our Discord for real time updates and follow us on Twitter for major announcements.
If you’d like to read more about the developments mentioned in November’s Token Holder Update, we’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite content from November 2023 below:
