How to Stake OMG?

Cryptocurrencies without real-world use cases can hardly achieve any considerable popularity or market capitalisation because the adoption rate of cryptos heavily depends on their utility. If a crypto project offers successful and easily accessible solutions, such as fast payments, DeFi protocols and smart contract functionalities, then it’s more likely to have a higher market cap compared to meme coins without authenticity.

One of many top-quality crypto projects that offer innovative solutions for the financial sector, both in terms of speed and scalability, is the OMG Network (OMG), formerly known as OmiseGO.

This project has been shaking the ground in Southeast Asia by providing users with means for conducting extremely fast and reliable digital cash transactions while preserving their funds’ privacy and safety.

Let’s take a closer look at the OMG Network and find out why this project has so much development potential. We’ll also take a look at how you can earn crypto by staking your OMG tokens for an annual percentage yield.

The OMG Network (OmiseGO)

The OMG Network was officially launched in 2017 as OmiseGO, but it was quickly rebranded. However, the story of the project began much earlier, back in 2013, with the launch of Omise, OMG’s parent company. This was essentially a payment service provider similar to the likes of PayPal but focused on Japan and Southeast Asia. Omise is based in Thailand, and soon after its launch, the company managed to achieve widespread popularity in Asian markets.

This prompted Omise to start working on a blockchain-based crypto platform that essentially aims to bring all the services associated with AliPay, PayPal, Apple Pay and similar businesses straight to the crypto market and enable users to purchase goods and products with crypto.

During the development phase of OmiseGo, the project was so hyped up that the Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, joined the team in an advisory capacity. Additionally, even the Bank of Thailand gave official support to the project because its goal to open a whole new segment of the market was so innovative.

Soon after the OmiseGO launch in 2017, the project’s market cap and trading volume started rapidly rising, thanks to the huge marketing and infrastructural support of the already existing Omise payment network.

As a result, a huge number of businesses that were accepting payments through Omise embraced the innovative OmiseGO blockchain network as a gateway for crypto transactions in exchange for their products and services.

However, OmiseGo had much larger plans. That’s why the project changed the name into OMG Network and focused its research and development towards implementing new blockchain features and exploring ways to expand its services. The OMG Plasma Network and the transition towards an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution that would enable asset staking are some of the key aspects of the OMG network development.

How Does OMG Work?

The OMG Network is built on top of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, while the OMG token is actually an ERC-20 token. The developer team behind OMG decided to utilise the Ethereum blockchain’s Plasma Network, which was still in development in 2018 when the OMG team started implementing it into their network.

Plasma is an innovative scaling solution for Ethereum, which enables ERC-20 tokens that use it to process much more transactions at a much higher speed than the basic ETH blockchain. This is done thanks to advanced smart contracts that are interconnected on top of the Ethereum blockchain as a layer 2 child chain of the ETH network, evading unnecessary processing delays while handling high data traffic.

The Plasma Network enables OMG to process up to one million transactions per second, which is much more than 10 times higher compared to the processing capacity of major payment service providers such as Visa, with their 50,000 transfers per second limit.

Thanks to the Plasma Network, OMG is fit for massive adoption as a payment medium among all sorts of businesses because there’s literally no delay when a payment needs to get processed. You can instantly buy a product at a retailer that supports OMG as a payment medium.

The Ethereum blockchain is notorious for its extremely high transaction fees that can often be much higher than the total amount of processed funds. Imagine the ridiculous situation in which you’re trying to pay for a 10 USD product on the internet with an ERC-20 token, and a smart contract approval window pops up, notifying you that the gas fee is another 30 or 50 USD.

Well, these sorts of situations are unimaginable while using OMG, even though it is an ERC-20 token. The Plasma Network lowers blockchain fees for up to 90%, thanks to the grouping of transactions that are then processed through the blockchain in batches of data, effectively lowering the fees for every sender within the batch.

The OMG token was launched through an initial coin offering (ICO), and it has a total supply of 140,245,399 tokens that are already launched on the market. This means that there’s no possibility of mining OMG tokens. 

OMG Development

The OMG Network is up and functioning, but it still has a lot to deliver in terms of project development since one of the key promises of the team is to enable users to generate passive income from holding and staking their OMG tokens.

The OMG blockchain is designed to be a Proof of Stake blockchain, but it’s still based on the OMG Network Proof of Authority consensus algorithm, where the OMG central network nodes process transactions.

This current blockchain architecture is relatively centralised since users can’t participate in the network independently as validators and stake their tokens.

However, the team emphasises that updating the OMG network and shifting towards a full Proof of Stake protocol is one of their key priorities in order to make OMG a project that can work both as a lightning-fast transaction medium and as a source of passive income.

What’s even more important is that once OMG shifts to the PoS protocol, it will literally become impossible for cyber attackers to gain control over the network because there won’t be any central authority capable of pulling the plug on the whole blockchain.

Staking OMG Tokens

Although direct staking of OMG tokens is still under development and you can’t just join an OMG network staking pool, there are several possibilities to stake your OMG tokens and earn yearly interest.

The first and safest option is to stake your OMG tokens on the popular Crypto.com exchange platform. Crypto.com has become one of the largest cryptocurrency exchange platforms on the market thanks to its wide range of available services, strong selection of digital assets, and affordable fees. The platform enables users to stake various digital currencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT), and other altcoins and stablecoin while earning solid monthly or annual returns.

You just need to download the Crypto.com app for iOS or Android, install it, create a user account and you’re all set to start staking OMG.

You can buy OMG tokens on the exchange, but if you already have some OMG in a third-party crypto wallet, you can also send the tokens to your Crypto.com account and then stake them. The APY for OMG tokens is 3% on Crypto.com if you stake your stake and lock your tokens for one or three months. If you choose the flexible option, which allows you to unstake your OMG at all times, the APY drops down to 1%.

Another popular option for staking your OMG coins is through the Celsius Network crypto lending platform and their DeFi dApp, which lets users stake a variety of cryptocurrencies and earn rewards. The Celsius Network is essentially a crypto lending protocol, which makes it a bit riskier than the Crypto.com exchange. In case you decide to use the Celsius Network, you can earn 0.63% APY on your OMG coins. 

Before you decide to stake your OMG, you should first check the OMG price in fiat money on Coinmarketcap, to get an idea about your potential profits in regard to the current market price of the token.

A Few Ending Words…

The OMG Network is a great example of how crypto is disrupting the traditional financial system by introducing new means of facilitating business deals and commercial operations with the help of blockchain technology.

Although OMG’s payment services are fully functional and constantly expanding on the Asian market, it remains to be seen whether the introduction of OMG staking through official OMG Network channels will jump-start OMG’s popularity on a global level.

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