Origin Protocol provides a platform for building peer-to-peer marketplaces and e-commerce applications. Users can buy or sell goods and services on these marketplaces, and developers can create their own applications powered by the Origin blockchain.
At its core proposition, Origin features:
- Lower fees: buyers and sellers can save more when middlemen are removed.
- Better incentives: anyone can own a stake in the network by contributing to its growth by referring new users, driving transactions, promoting listings, and building applications.
- Increased access: markets are accessible to even the unbanked population.
- Censorship resilience: peer-to-peer marketplaces are difficult to ban or shut down.
Some of its key elements include:
- Raised 38.1MM USD via private & public token sales from November 2017 to July 2018.
- Ethereum-based platform for building peer-to-peer marketplaces.
- Implemented meta-transactions so normal users no longer need to pay Ethereum gas fees.
Some of its key highlights include:
- Improved user experience: Origin is one of the first projects to implement meta-transactions on Ethereum, which aims to save users from paying Ethereum gas fees for all transactions, and therefore simplifying the user experience.
- User & developer traction: as of writing, over 30,000 Ethereum wallets have registered on the marketplace platform with approximately 2,000 transactions of goods and services (e.g., homeshare rentals, e-commerce sales). More than 170 developers have contributed to the project on GitHub, and the team has also gathered more than 50 volunteer translators who have made the Origin dApp available in 20 languages.
- Developer platform: Origin provides open source protocols, developer libraries, marketplace creator tools, and end-user applications to improve the user experience of all platform participants.
- Team & investors: the project is led by serial entrepreneurs and seasoned team members from PayPal, YouTube, Google, DropBox, etc., and has received backing from top investors such as Pantera Capital and Foundation Capital, as well as from individuals like Steve Chen, the founder of YouTube.
The Origin token ($OGN) is used as an incentive, payment, and governance asset in the Origin ecosystem. It is ERC20 and Sora based token. It can earn platform fees by staking.
OGN token overview and use-cases:
OGN is the native utility token used to power the Origin platform, enable incentive systems, payments, and future governance mechanisms.
- Rewards: users are rewarded with OGN when earning cashback on purchases, verifying identities, promoting Origin on social media, and referring new users to the platform.
- Commissions/Advertising: sellers pay OGN commissions to application developers to promote their listings and gain higher visibility on marketplace and e-commerce applications to generate more sales.
- Payments: buyers can pay sellers with OGN in exchange for receiving goods and services.
- Staking: the Origin team is currently researching and developing new staking models that will generate yields for token holders in exchange for powering and supporting other parts of the network.
- Governance: the OGN token will also have governance functionalities in the future.
$OGN token supply distribution & sales overview
- Advisor Sale tokens comprise 4.38% of the total token supply.
- Strategic Sale tokens comprise 23.75% of the total token supply.
- CoinList Sale tokens comprise 4.84% of the total token supply.
- Team tokens comprise 20.24% of the total token supply.
- Advisor Grants tokens comprise 1.69% of the total token supply.
- Foundation Reserves tokens comprise 31.37% of the total token supply.
- Ecosystem Growth Funds tokens comprise 12.99% of the total token supply.
- Long-term Partnerships tokens comprise 0.73% of the total token supply.
Below shows $OGN different sales round overview:
- Advisor Sale overview: the Advisor Sale was conducted on Nov 10th 2017 at a rate of 0.0685 USD / OGN and raised a total of 3.00MM USD, selling 4.38% of the total token supply. The Advisor Sale was conducted in USD only.
- Strategic Sale overview: the Strategic Sale was conducted from Jan 12th 2018 to Apr 9th 2018 for 0.1200 USD / OGN at an average rate of 1,002 USD = 1 ETH and 10,926 USD = 1 BTC, and raised a total of 25.51MM USD, for 23.75% of the total token supply. The Strategic Sale was conducted in ETH, BTC, and USD, and raised a total of 16,895 ETH, 167 BTC, and 9,752,331 USD.
- CoinList Sale overview: the CoinList Sale was conducted from Jun 18th 2018 to July 31st 2018 for 0.1364 USD / OGN at an average rate of 426 USD = 1 ETH and 5,890 USD = 1 BTC and raised a total of 6.60MM USD, for 4.84% of the total token supply. The CoinList Sale raised a total of 10,261 ETH, 89 BTC, and 1,704,604 USD.
Key metrics of $OGN
OGN token release schedule
The following chart represents the number and breakdown of all OGN tokens that are to be released into circulation on a monthly basis. The Foundation Reserves tokens will continue to be released after July 2024.
The Origin Platform is built on Ethereum and stores all critical data such as pricing and availability on chain. Other metadata such as descriptions, images, reputation, and reviews are stored on the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) and cryptographically linked to the contract.
Origin user accounts are wallets that have optional identity contracts associated with them adhering to the ERC-725 standard. Listings are created using a front-end DApp to publish a JSON data object to a publicly writable IPFS gateway. This JSON data object conforms to a set of standards and validation rules to be considered valid on the network. The IPFS node publishes the listing to the IPFS network making the listing available via distributed computers around the world to anyone who knows the content hash. The content hash of the listing is then sent to a smart contract which formally publishes the listing and also references pricing and availability information along with any specified booking rules and policies.
Listings can be searched, browsed, and booked via the frontend Origin or third-party DApp which connects to an open-source contract indexing server, making it possible to search and filter all public listings. Once a listing has been selected, a user can make a booking by sending payment to the booking smart contract along with the IPFS hash of the chosen listing and the desired interval to book. The smart contract will verify that the booking is valid and handle the transfer of funds between the buyer and the seller, including the escrow of funds when applicable. Once a transaction is complete, users are encouraged to leave a rating and review. Once again, the content is stored on IPFS and only the content hash is stored on Ethereum. Users are able to establish their reputations over time with verified transactions, building a unified reputation across multiple listing verticals.
The Origin Protocol seeks to create a shared economy marketplace that offer buyers and sellers control over their data, drastically reduced transaction fees, and identity verification and reputation scores. These reputation scores are meant to be portable across various shared economy verticals so sellers can readily provide services in many different forms knowing they'll be trusted to accomplish the task.
The Origin DApp is an open-source HTML and JavaScript application that enables buyers and sellers to meet, communicate and transact with each other. It also allows sellers a means to create, manage, validate and publish listings. There will likely be many front-end applications that will build on top of the Origin protocol.
The Origin token is used for governance of the platform to influence the direction of software development and business policies. It is also used to "boost" listings to give them higher placement and visibility in search results. Marketplace operators can earn tokens from boosted listings providing an an inventive to feature and promote them.
