Want to read the full report? You can find it on our GitHub.
Following its successful audit by OpenZeppelin, Origin Ether launched on Mainnet on May 16th, 2023.
Security is a top priority for Origin DeFi, with over a dozen audits conducted for the protocol’s yield-bearing tokens over the past two years from OpenZeppelin, Certora, Solidified, and Trail of Bits. OETH uses over 95% of Origin Dollar’s codebase, allowing the protocol to take advantage of OUSD’s battle-tested smart contracts that have seen hundreds of millions of dollars flow through them.
OpenZeppelin is one of the top blockchain security firms, auditing companies such as Coinbase, Aave, The Ethereum Foundation, and beyond. This article aims to summarize OpenZeppelin’s findings, assuring users that Origin Ether’s code remains bulletproof.
Origin Ether earns holders top-of-market yield on ETH, directly in their wallets in the form of “up-only” rebasing. The protocol earns yield through exposure to liquid staking tokens (LSTs) and liquidity provision within DeFi. Rewards tokens earned in DeFi are swapped into OETH and auto-compounded in user wallets. Through strategic allocations of ETH and LSTs, OETH earns significantly higher yield than holding liquid staking tokens outright.
There are two primary features of Origin Ether’s yield strategy that contribute to the token’s elevated yield. Its Automated Market Operations (AMO) strategy utilizes protocol-owned liquidity to earn a greater share of rewards on Curve, while allowing the protocol to better maintain its ether peg and reduce slippage.
Another factor that elevates yield is Origin Ether’s rebasing dynamic. By default, OETH held in smart contracts does not earn yield. Instead, this yield is passed on to regular holder wallets, boosting yield earned for normal users.
A total of 10 issues have been found. Only 1 was marked as medium severity, while the rest were marked as low severity issues. The medium severity issue has since been resolved, as well as many low severity issues alongside it.
OpenZeppelin reported one medium severity issue: Data feeds utilized by Origin Ether may be outdated.
One of OETH’s techniques to resist a change in the mix of backing assets in the case of a depeg of one of these assets depends on Chainlink oracles. In the event that Chainlink stopped updating their oracles, OETH would no longer have this additional layer of resistance.
This issue was marked as medium severity, as funds were not at risk of being stolen, and the issue would only become a concern in the event of a depeg. OETH’s oracle use is designed in such a way that even if all oracles used were completely under an attacker’s control, the attacker would not be able to reduce the number of ETH equivalents backing other users’ funds.
In response to OpenZeppelin’s findings, Origin DeFi has added code to stop mints or redeems of OETH that use a particular token if that token’s Chainlink oracle has not been updated within a specified timeframe.
The best risk-adjusted returns in DeFi are only offered by protocols with bulletproof code.
Origin DeFi understands that smart contract risk is among the most prevalent risks in DeFi, so it maintains a security-first mindset for all its products and code deployments. All code is audited internally and externally before being deployed, and timelocks are in place to safeguard holders’ assets.
Origin DeFi has a continuous agreement with OpenZeppelin to audit all code changes to Origin Ether before they are deployed on Mainnet. This ensures that even the smallest changes are meticulously reviewed, leaving no room for error.
To start stacking ETH faster, mint OETH and watch your balance increase daily.
Every month, the Origin team publishes an update to our token holders and the broader community. We hope you enjoy our May 2023 edition.
OETH is here! Origin Story unveils a new phygital experience with Pudgy Penguins.
Welcome back to another Origin Protocol token holder update! May was packed with announcements from both Origin Story and Origin DeFi, with new product launches on both sides of the business. Origin Story announced its largest NFT marketplace to-date, in collaboration with Pudgy Penguins. The Pudgy Toys marketplace is home to over half a million NFTs, with an anticipated collector base in the tens of thousands. As always, 100% of marketplace revenue is routed to the OGN staking pool.
In May, OGV rebranded from Origin Dollar Governance to Origin DeFi governance. This came in preparation for Origin’s OETH launch, which officially went live for users on May 16th. Origin DeFi empowers anyone to earn exceptional yield on ETH and stablecoins, directly to their wallets.
Origin Ether launched on Mainnet in May, attracting over 8,000 ETH in TVL.
Previously Origin Dollar Governance, OGV has rebranded to Origin DeFi. In light of Origin Ether’s Mainnet launch, Origin DeFi now encompasses Origin Protocol’s yield-bearing products, OETH and OUSD. OGV holders now govern both OTokens (OUSD and OETH). Just as veOGV stakers have earned yield from OUSD fees, the token’s utility has expanded to work as the value-accrual token for Origin Ether.
On May 16th, Origin DeFi announced that OETH is live on Mainnet. OETH is Origin’s foray into the world of liquid staking, aggregating yield from a basket of blue-chip LSTs and DeFi strategies. Since launch, OETH has attracted over 8,000 ETH TVL, growing consistently since the token went live. OETH holders currently earn more than twice the APY offered by leading liquid staking tokens. The current OETH APY can be found on the Origin Ether website.
Even though Origin Ether reuses 95% of Origin Dollar’s code, it underwent its own audits by OpenZeppelin and Narya. The auditing firms found no critical or high severity issues within Origin Ether’s codebase, greenlighting the token for launch. The OpenZeppelin audit flagged minor potential issues with Origin Ether’s smart contracts, none of which could result in a protocol exploit. Origin has since resolved these issues which OpenZeppelin will soon review.
Now that OETH has launched, Origin DeFi’s next priority is to add more yield-bearing strategies to its OTokens. A Uniswap strategy for OUSD has already been audited by OpenZeppelin, and the team is exploring the strategy’s applicability to Origin Ether. Over the coming weeks, OGV voters will likely see more proposals regarding new strategies pass through governance.
We’ve made it easier than ever to get onboarded to NFTs via the Pudgy Toys Traits marketplace.
Origin Story’s long standing partnership with Pudgy Penguins took a step forward in May with the launch of the Pudgy Traits marketplace. The Pudgy Traits marketplace is the largest NFT collection Origin Story supports to-date, with over 500,000 NFTs and an anticipated user base in the tens of thousands.
The Pudgy Toys Traits marketplace aims to onboard new users to NFTs through a streamlined, web2-like experience while retaining the benefits of decentralization. Users can sign into the marketplace using their email address, thanks to Origin Story’s integration with Magic Link. Magic Link creates crypto wallets for users without using seed phrases and passwords, eliminating one of the largest barriers to entry currently plaguing the space.
Moreover, users don’t need to own crypto to buy Pudgy Traits for their Pudgy Toys. Instead, users have the option to purchase with credit cards, powered by Crossmint. These features, paired with the scalability of Polygon’s network, have created the most seamless NFT marketplace to-date.
The Pudgy Toys launch gained press from top-tier crypto media, and excitement on crypto twitter brewed as the collection started to ship toys to users. TechCrunch and Decrypt both covered the launch, bringing attention to the new collection and Origin Story. While marketplace volume remains low, Origin Story attributes this to users not yet receiving their shipments of Pudgy Toys. In the coming weeks, Origin Story anticipates a large spike in volume from the Pudgy Toys marketplace.
Also in May, Origin Story launched The Carton marketplace for Lyrical Lemonade. Lyrical Lemonade is a multimedia company that became famous for its music videos for Juice Wrld, Chance The Rapper, and Eminem. The Carton NFTs were incubated by Lyrical Lemonade’s technology arm L3mon Worldwide, offering a limited collection of 500 NFTs to Lyrical Lemonade’s fanbase. Each NFT entitles holders to 3 years of access to Lyrical Lemonade’s Summer Smash festival, with performing artists including Kid Cudi, Playboi Carti, and Future.
As Origin Story expands its partnerships and marketplace offerings, OGN stakers receive 100% of the marketplace revenue generated by Origin Story marketplaces. As of May 2023, Origin Story supports over a dozen official storefronts for NFT collections, including Pudgy Penguins, RoofStock onChain, 0N1 Force, The Doge Pound, Roo Troop, and beyond.
Check out the latest yield opportunities, staking updates, and tokenomics data for Origin’s tokens.
Origin DeFi’s OETH has seen impressive growth since its launch, allowing OGV stakers to earn higher rewards from fees earned by the protocol. There is currently the opportunity to earn boosted yield via the OGV-ETH Curve Pool, increasing the liquidity and trading volume for Origin DeFi Governance in May.
OGN Season 3 staking is underway, and participation continues to increase ahead of staking being locked in June. Let’s dive into each token’s yield opportunities, staking updates, and tokenomic data in the month of May.
OGN Season 3 staking is in full force, with over 64 million tokens staked to earn rewards. Earlier this year, OGN governance passed a proposal to subsidize rewards, helping boost staking APYs while Origin Story expands its partnerships with 0% marketplace fees.
There is currently over 550,000 OGN and 15+ ETH in rewards for Season 3. As the season progresses, rewards will accumulate to OGN stakers proportional to the amount of time and number of tokens users stake. The deposit window for staking closes on June 6th, and Season 3 rewards can be claimed at the end of the season on July 6th, 2023.
Origin DeFi Governance (OGV) gained fresh utility in May with the launch of Origin Ether. Now acting as the value-accrual and governance token for both OUSD and OETH, OGV stakers receive protocol fees from both of Origin’s OTokens. Adding to the lure of OGV, DAO governance passed a vote to increase protocol fees on OUSD from 10% to 20%. These extra funds will be used to buy CRV and CVX tokens, boosting yield on Origin’s Curve strategies.
Origin DeFi Governance has a market capitalization of $5.2 million. With nearly 80% of OGV staked, most tokens are not currently in circulation. This has led to increased volatility – OGV appreciated over 40% leading up to the launch of Origin Ether.
OGV stakers can receive up to 29.55% APY by staking their tokens in Origin DeFi’s governance portal. Similar to Curve’s governance model, investors that stake OGV for a longer period are entitled to greater yield. Those who are uninterested in governance may prefer to stake OGV in Curve’s OGV-ETH liquidity pool, where liquidity providers can earn up to 35% APY.
With over 8,000 ETH ($14.9m) in total value locked, Origin Ether has seen early success. Since launch, OETH holders have earned over twice the APY offered by Lido stETH, with the current trailing 7-day APY sitting above 12%. As of writing, the majority of liquid staking token (LST) deposits have been in frxETH and Lido stETH. These deposits make up around 35% of OETH collateral, with the remaining 65% consisting of ETH, WETH, and rETH.
Over the last 30 days, Origin Dollar has yielded 4.5% APY. The majority of collateral is currently being utilized in Origin’s Morpho Aave strategy, with over $19 million in stables deployed to Morpho. Over 20% of Origin Dollar’s collateral is currently earning yield in Origin’s Convex strategy, with the remaining 7.5% of collateral earning yield directly on Aave.
Origin Protocol got together in person to discuss strategy and celebrate the OETH launch.
As a fully distributed team, Origin rarely gets to spend time together in person to collaborate on Origin’s vision for the future. In May, the Origin Protocol team was able to get together to prepare for new product launches, spending time ideating on big bets for the protocol.
The Origin DeFi team prepared for OETH’s launch and spent time ideating new yield strategies for Origin DeFi. Simultaneously, the Origin Story team got together to assess OGN tokenomics, ideating on big bets to take for Origin Story. From new NFT standards to integrating more deeply with Origin Story’s key partners, Origin Story was able to set ambitious goals for the coming months during the team’s get together.
While we’ve filled most open positions with top-tier talent, we’re still in search of a stellar product manager for Origin’s DeFi. Our ideal candidate has a wealth of experience building DeFi products, has immense knowledge of Ethereum’s ecosystem, and is obsessed with data-driven decision making.
Think you got what it takes? Shoot us a message in our Discord, or apply directly through our job listing.
Origin Protocol had several major announcements for Origin Story and Origin DeFi last month. In case you missed any of Origin’s updates, fret not! Check out some of Origin’s blog posts below to read up on our recent announcements:
That’s it for May! Stay tuned to our Twitter for real-time updates, and we’ll see you back on July 1st for the next token holder update.
Want to get in touch with us to launch your NFT marketplace? Looking to demo a product we made during innovation week? Hit us up at [email protected] to get in touch with our team!
Origin’s ambitious vision and steadfast innovation has attracted some of Tech’s brightest minds. Our Inside Origin series highlights key investors, advisors, and team members. This week we dive into the world of a founding team member of PayPal, Yu Pan.
Did you know:
These stories and more will be covered in future Inside Origin editions! This marks the third edition of our bi-weekly Inside Origin series. Our most recent edition covered Youtube cofounder Steve Chen’s involvement with Origin. Today we’re exploring the incredible journey of Yu Pan, who played an integral role as the lead research engineer for OUSD!
Few builders can compete with the vast experience and cutting-edge products under Yu Pan’s belt.
Born in China, Yu Pan graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. Exploding with innovative ideas, he became one of PayPal’s six original founding members in 1999.
Yu spearheaded engineering efforts during his five year tenure at PayPal, building out many core elements of PayPal’s payments and auction infrastructure. He even spent time developing a crude version of a “crypto wallet” which enabled offline digital signatures for payments, evidencing his visionary perspective.
Not one to rest on his success, Yu subsequently joined YouTube as the platform’s very first engineer. Continuing his streak of engineering genius, he built the embedded video player that ignited the video-sharing platform's meteoric growth.
This move proved fortuitous for many reasons. At YouTube, Yu crossed paths with our co-founder Matthew Liu, who was growing YT as one of the site’s first project managers. The meeting marked the start of a long and enduring friendship and working relationship.
As a visionary obsessed with value and empowerment, Yu shared Matt’s infectious excitement for a smart contract protocol built to serve the sharing economy.
Yu’s passion for innovation and relentless building saw him officially join Origin as lead research and development engineer in 2018.
His broad insights and battle-tested expertise have contributed greatly to Origin’s success. As Origin Dollar’s lead research engineer, Yu played an integral part in building OUSD’s robust mechanics and seamless usability.
PayPal Cofounder & First YouTube Engineer Talks About His Work at Origin
Yu’s career illustrates a rare brilliance that has left indelible marks on the industries he’s worked in.
Between YouTube and joining Origin, he served as CTO for payments startups including Affirm and 8i. Somehow, he’s also made time to found multiple startups during his illustrious career.
Yu Pan’s serial success evidences decades of incredibly hard work coupled with an insatiable passion for software. His unique vision and ability to execute has been disrupting the payments landscape since its early beginnings.
We’re immensely proud to have had Yu Pan play an integral role in Origin Protocol’s founding, as well as having him as one of our most ardent supporters.
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 Origin 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.
With bleeding edge products at the forefront of web3, it’s no wonder that Origin has been supported by veterans of the tech space. Our Inside Origin content series highlights Origin Protocol’s investors, advisors, and team members – this week we take a look at Youtube co-founder Steve Chen!
If you’re new to Origin, you may be unfamiliar with the team and our history. Did you know:
Every other Wednesday, Origin chooses one great mind to highlight within Inside Origin. The previous edition covered Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and Origin Protocol investor. Now let’s dive into YouTube co-founder Steve Chen’s involvement in Origin Protocol.
Born in 1978 in Taipei, Steve took an early interest in computing, well before the internet gained mass adoption. After attaining a degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois, he joined Paypal as a software engineer in 2002.
This role allowed him to connect with fellow visionaries Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim. The trio went on to found Youtube in 2005, ushering in a digital renaissance on a scale scarcely seen before. Steve’s iconic positioning in Web2 culture was solidified in 2006, as Google acquired Youtube for a mammoth $1.65 billion.
Steve has maintained a keen interest in disruptive technologies since his days at Youtube. It was this passion that led him to become an early supporter and advisor at Origin Protocol in 2018.
Steve was drawn to Origin by the protocol’s resounding potential and the strength of the founding team.
Having watched our cofounder Matthew Liu play a critical role in scaling Youtube as its third product manager, Steve was able to invest confidently in the team’s long-term vision.
As an advisor, he’s been integral in the protocol’s growth. Backed by his wealth of experience scaling Youtube from obscurity to one of the largest websites on the internet, Steve has provided invaluable insights into the brass tacks of scalability.
Steve Chen Speaks about Origin Co-founder, Matthew Liu
Since Youtube, Steve has worked on a number of startups targeting media creation and social interaction. These endeavors led him to join Alphabet’s VC arm, GV, in 2018. He’s been a partner at the firm since 2021, playing a direct role in Google Venture’s investment strategies.
Steve’s career belies an insatiable passion for people and groundbreaking tech, backed by precise business acumen and a rarely seen level of foresight. We couldn’t be prouder to count Steve among Origin’s early investors!
Steve Chen (right) pictured with fellow YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley
Every month, the Origin team publishes an update to our token holders and the broader community. We hope you enjoy our April 2023 edition.
April innovations bring May transformations! That’s how the saying goes, right?
In April, Origin Story and Origin DeFi have been busy building the latest innovations that lay the groundwork for what’s to come in May and beyond.
Origin Story released its Royalty Leaderboard on partner marketplaces this month. The Royalty Leaderboard tracks how much each collector has paid in royalties across marketplaces, and creators are already incentivizing this gamification system with exclusive perks and NFT rewards. As we experiment with incentives and points-based rewards systems, the new leaderboard plays an important role in driving volume to Origin Story marketplaces.
Origin’s DeFi arm has deployed Origin Ether contracts for testing, and OpenZeppelin is slated to audit the token’s code and yield-bearing strategies in early May. Pending that no major concerns are found in Origin Ether’s code, OETH will become available to everyone very soon.
In regards to token adoption, both OGV and OGN were listed on BitMart last month. BitMart averages around $1 billion in daily trading volume, and now the platform’s millions of users have access to both of Origin’s governance tokens. OGN also saw added support on new exchanges last month, including BitPanda and SwapZone.
Origin Ether is launching soon; here’s what you need to know in order to stack ETH faster.
By now, you’ve probably seen the buzz around Origin Ether (OETH) on the Origin Dollar Twitter account. Origin’s DeFi arm has been building a new token, Origin Ether, that allows users to grow their ETH balances faster. Similarly to Origin Dollar, OETH is a yield-bearing token that accumulates yield directly to users’ wallets, beating yield earned by liquid staking derivatives and various DeFi strategies.
If you’ve missed the details on OETH, here’s what you need to know:
Leading security firm OpenZeppelin is scheduled to audit Origin Ether in May. OpenZeppelin helps audit firms like Coinbase, Aave, The Ethereum Foundation, and Origin Dollar. Pending the audits’ findings, Origin Protocol anticipates that OETH will become available for everyone very soon.
Check out our new partnerships, upcoming campaigns, and Origin Story’s Royalty Leaderboard.
April has been a busy month for Origin Story and the broader NFT space. Senior team members attended NFT NYC in mid-April, discussing non-fungible token innovation at a host of panels. Check out our recap for a full rundown of the event.
We haven’t just been discussing innovation – we’ve been doing it. Over the last few weeks, Story has rolled out incentivized Royalty Leaderboards across supported platforms. This feature affirms our creator-centric vision by ranking users according to royalties paid across all marketplaces. Working directly with creators, Origin Story offers NFTs, exclusive merchandise, and other benefits to top royalty payers in each community.
April kicked off with the launch of the official POGs NFT marketplace, serving one of the most iconic brands of the 90s. The platform features a brand new collection from POG, which launched on Ethereum last month. Excitingly, users will be able to claim bonus rewards for using the official POGs marketplace, such as Bitcoin Ordinal NFTs!
We’ve also joined forces with the web3 fine art collective Lunatics to power its marketplace. Lunatics is the brainchild of acclaimed artist Chistopher Lizarraga and 3D artist Leonardo Fonseca. The upcoming genesis collection will be minted on Lunatics’ own launchpad, with Story hosting secondary sales.
Additionally, the official Roo Troop marketplace is now the sole marketplace for Roo trading! Roo Troop blocked Opensea and Blur from listing its NFTs, trusting Origin Story to be the primary storefront for all the collection’s assets. Soon after the team made this decision, listings and users increased sharply on Origin Story’s storefront.
OpenZeppelin published its findings on Origin Dollar’s latest update, greenlighting a new Uniswap strategy.
OUSD’s APYs have stabilized following March’s spike into the triple-digits. Since then, yields have held steadfast around 5%, significantly beating yields earned from Aave, Compound, and Curve. As of writing, OUSD yield is primarily being generated on Morpho Aave, Curve, and Convex, with a small allocation to Compound.
Excitingly, OpenZeppelin has published its latest audit on Origin Dollar, reviewing new code for a Uniswap strategy and the OUSD Dripper. The Uniswap strategy further diversifies how yield is earned with Origin Dollar, and the team anticipates the strategy will increase the amount of sustainable yield being generated by the protocol. Instead of directly utilizing Uniswap pools, OUSD auctions off liquidity to liquidity providers, limiting downside risk and even ensuring a minimum return on the borrowed capital.
The OUSD Dripper allows for more predictable and less volatile yield for Origin Dollar holders. The Dripper takes yield earned and disperses it out evenly over a period of time, allowing holders to earn more predictable yield over the short-term.
With no high severity problems reported by OpenZeppelin, these upgrades are slated to roll out to Origin Dollar shorly after the launch of Origin Ether.
OGN Season 3 staking locks on June 6th. OGV’s utility is expanding in May with OETH.
While many altcoin prices remained steady in the month of April, increased interest in Bitcoin and ETH have signaled that the worst may be behind us. Last month, OGV continued its scintillating run, up over 25% in the last 30 days.
OGV has sustained its upward trend since the beginning of the year, maintaining its strength in April. Indicative of its price action, anticipation is growing around OGV being used for value-accrual and governance of Origin Ether. With a market capitalization under $10 million and the majority of OGV staked, the token’s price has remained more volatile than many similar tokens.
Yield farmers currently have great opportunities to earn yield on OGV via Curve, with additional incentives to earn up to 98% APY for a limited time.
OGV is about to enjoy fresh utility as the governance token for the Origin Ether ecosystem. At present, nearly 80% of all OGV in circulation is staked. We anticipate that this number will increase with the launch of OETH.
Meanwhile, OGN holders are receiving heightened staking rewards via the OGN Season 3 staking pool. The broader altcoin climate remains uncertain, with heightened volatility seeing traders change sentiment rapidly. As a reminder, OGN Season 3 Staking is now well underway. Staking locks on June 6th – meaning there’s still time to get involved and claim a share of rewards!
The Season 3 pool currently contains over 62 million OGN, with rewards for Season 3 being subsidized by the Origin Foundation after a recent governance proposal passed. Subsidized rewards are in response to Origin Story’s 0% marketplace fee discount, which has aided in gaining new listings and transactions on our partners’ marketplaces.
Origin Protocol welcomes 2 new engineers and a Head of Community to the team.
Origin Protocol made significant additions to its team by hiring three new employees in April. Nick Addison, Rafael Ugolini, and Tom Osman are the new members of the team that bring a wealth of web3 experience and knowledge with them.
Nick Addison has joined Origin’s DeFi arm as a Senior Engineer and is expected to play a significant role in the development of Origin's OUSD and OETH. With his previous experience at mStable, Nick has an in-depth understanding of DeFi yields and stablecoins, which will be extremely valuable for Origin Protocol's yield-bearing tokens.
Rafael Ugolini is Origin Protocol’s new Engineering Manager and will be responsible for overseeing the development of OUSD and OETH. His experience at mStable and knowledge of smart contract development has already proven to be a valuable asset for Origin Protocol. Rafael's expertise in this area will help ensure that Origin’s DeFi arm continues to operate securely, efficiently, and with high standards for innovation.
Tom “Ozzy” Osman has been hired as the Head of Community, and his primary focus will be on revamping Origin Protocol's Discord and Telegram communities. He will be implementing a range of new features to improve user engagement, including incentivized participation and tiered Discord roles. Ozzy has engaged our community with Zealy, allowing participants to earn NFTs from Origin’s partners.
His experience in community building and marketing will be valuable in ensuring that Origin Story and Origin DeFi continue to grow and evolve. On balance, the new hires in April have brought a great deal of experience and knowledge to Origin Protocol, and they are expected to play a vital role in the platform's future development.
While we’ve filled most open positions with top-tier talent, we’re still in search of a stellar product manager for Origin’s DeFi products. Our ideal candidate has a wealth of experience building DeFi products, has immense knowledge of Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem, and is obsessed with data-driven decision making.
Think you got what it takes? Shoot us a message in our Discord, or apply directly through our job listing.
April was a busy month at Origin Protocol, and some of our announcements may have gotten lost on your Twitter feed. To stay in the know with what we’re building, be sure to turn on Tweet notifications, and check out our blogs on story.xyz/blog and ousd.com/blog. We regularly post long-form content on OUSD integrations, DAO proposals, and new features for Origin Story. Here are some of our favorite posts you may have missed:
Want to get in touch with us to launch your NFT marketplace? Looking to demo a product we made during innovation week? Hit us up at [email protected] to get in touch with our team!
We’re excited to share that smart contract guru Nick Addison has joined the Origin engineering team!
Nick joins us from the mStable protocol, where he played an integral part as a contract developer. His blockchain expertise is informed by nearly a decade of professional coding in the space.
Nick developed a passion for crypto while working at an investment bank. Having started off building trading bots, Nick shifted his focus to smart contract development when Ethereum launched and hasn’t looked back since.
Prior to working at mStable, Nick spent three years at leading software firm ConsenSys, where he worked with an array of commercial and central banks across the Asia Pacific region.
Discussing his decision to join Origin, Nick cites a deep passion for DeFi and the team’s strength.
“I want to keep working in the Decentralised Finance space,” he explains. Addison continued, “Since mStable was shutting down, moving to Origin with similar philosophies and best practices made a lot of sense. Origin has a strong, professional team that I’m excited to join.”
A self-professed nature junkie, Nick recharges with swimming, pilates, and mountain biking. When he’s taking time out, he also loves venturing on remote camping trips with his kids.
Please join us in welcoming Nick to the Origin team!
We are pleased to announce the addition of Rafael Ugolini to Origin’s world-class team!
Commanding a total of 18 years of experience in engineering, Rafael will be empowering Origin DeFi as its engineering manager! Rafael’s most notable roles were at mStable, as its VP of Engineering, and at Collibra, where he scaled Collibra’s engineering team. Notably, Collibra was Belgium’s first unicorn in data intelligence. To bring our DeFi products to the next level, we sought to combine his proven abilities with Origin’s suite of offerings.
Rafael began coding during his teenage years when he discovered Linux, Open Source, and network protocols. After spending some time in web3, the industry’s sense of community, values, and potential for innovation gave him a similar feeling he had felt during the days he just started coding. That was when he decided to jump fully into web3.
After meeting with Origin, Rafael was thoroughly impressed with the team’s professionalism and dynamic approach, which embodies the innovative spirit often found in fast-growing Web2 startups yet rarely seen in the Web3 realm. Origin’s capabilities and focus on creating Web3 primitives deeply resonated with Rafael, compelling him to bring his skills and passion for the space to Origin.
Whenever Rafael is not building out the next generation of tech products, he enjoys attending electronic music festivals and traveling to warm beachside destinations.
Please join us in welcoming Rafael to the Origin team!
Origin protocol is proud to attract top talent across its network of investors, employees, and partners. We’ve gained investment from some of the digital world’s top minds, and Origin Protocol’s team is stacked with some of the greatest talent in the space. Did you know:
Surely at least a couple of these facts caught you off guard! That’s why we’ve started a new content series: Inside Origin. Inside Origin is our opportunity to flex a little bit, showing off Origin’s top-tier investors, team members, and advisors.
The first edition of Inside Origin covers Reddit co-founder and venture capitalist Alexis Ohanian. Ohanian saw tremendous potential in Origin’s long-term success, and he played a crucial role in Origin’s 2018 strategic investment round.
Brooklyn-born Alexis Ohanian has cemented his place as a visionary of rare caliber. The serial entrepreneur founded Reddit in 2005, ushering in a new era for online communities. As of 2023, Reddit serves over 1.6 billion monthly active users. The platform continues to shape online culture through its unique offering.
Reddit has also contributed to crypto adoption, with blockchain enthusiasts congregating in subreddits since the early days of Bitcoin. The space owes much of its culture to the dedicated participants of /r/bitcoin.
In the wake of Reddit’s remarkable success, Ohanian has supported the growth of cutting-edge projects like Origin through deft venture capitalism.
As a lifelong student of the internet, it’s no surprise that Ohanian has been a staple of the crypto space for almost a decade.
Notably, Ohanian made a sizable investment in Ethereum’s ICO. He’s one of very few that were able to snag ETH under a dollar, with a buy-in at just $0.30 in 2014. Even more impressively, this was far from his first foray into crypto. Ohanian co-founded San Francisco-based VC firm Intialized Capital in 2011. As of 2021, the firm had raised a total of over $3.2 billion in assets.
Under Ohanian’s tenure, Intialized Capital secured a spot as the first seed investor in Coinbase ($COIN) in 2013. Coinbase went public in 2021 with a first-day valuation of $86 billion. Being involved on ApeCoin’s Counsel and as a Bored Ape holder himself, Ohanian is also entrenched in the NFT space.
Ohanian left his role as Managing Partner at Initialized in mid-2020 to pursue new frontiers. This culminated in him founding crypto-focused VC firm Seven Seven Six in 2021.
Seven Seven Six has made its presence known across the VC landscape, having raised over $500 million in the two years since its launch.
Notably, the firm invested in QuickNode’s Series B round in 2022, which raised a total of $60 million. Seven Seven Six’s portfolio boasts a diverse array of cutting-edge tech projects. These investments range from biotech outfits promoting healthier living to trading platforms like Pipe.
Ohanian is one of those unique individuals that somehow always finds himself at the forefront of novel emerging technologies.
This, undoubtedly, is the result of his deep, cross-domain knowledge and veteran experience in understanding online trends. His investing acumen belies an insatiable passion for progress, pushing boundaries, and remaining a step ahead of the wider market.
The same vision that saw him invest in Coinbase and ETH’s ICO drew him to Origin, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to count Alexis among our investors.
