Origin Protocol Review: Your Detailed Guide to Understand All About OGN Ecosystem

The introduction of the internet has enabled the digitalized markets to pair up sellers with buyers to implement a transaction. As a result, companies like Aliexpress, Craiglist, eBay, etc., have found effective ways to handle business.

Lately, marketplaces like Uber, Fiverr, and Airbnb have improved pairing consumers to providers (or buyers to sellers). Users who partake in fractional ownership (home-sharing, car-sharing) transactions can now do so in a more efficient way. They can monetize their excessive space, skills, and time.

However, these marketplaces concentrate on profitability upon goods and services.

There are various similarities between most sharing economy companies. At first, Collectively, these businesses have affected the world enormously.

Recipients have gained a lot of advancements through goods and services that previously weren’t available. The providers have leveraged these platforms in accessing and transacting with consumers.

Then, the majority of these sharing economy companies follow the growth processes except for a few who find it difficult to establish processes. Failure in such endeavors is a possibility nowadays. These marketplace businesses frequently cost millions or billions of dollars to grow locally or globally.

But, due to the high possibility of an increase in Network effects, successful businesses profit by placing transactional fees. Businesses that capitalize upon network effects often operate like the sharing economy companies, in that, at maturity, they begin functioning in monopolization.

For many years, blockchain experts and investors have invited development teams to create p2p (peer-to-peer) models of the existent sharing economy companies in a more effective way for handling e-commerce.

The Origin Protocol was introduced to solve the problems of the existing sharing assets marketplaces. OGN provides a decentralized marketplace for users, businesses, and developers to transact upon shared goods and services.

Unlike legacy sharing economy platforms, OGN doesn’t have third parties or centralized governance in-between transactions.

What is Origin Protocol?

Origin Protocol is an ERC20 protocol that is built and hosted on Ethereum’s blockchain. The Origin Protocol is an ecosystem that allows the establishment of numerous distributed marketplaces on the blockchain. It allows buyers and sellers to transact through p2p networks.

The protocol’s mission is to eradicate middlemen by utilizing Ethereum’s Blockchain and an Interplanetary File System.

In Origin protocol, users, developers, and businesses can join and create their marketplaces on the Ethereum mainnet. The protocol enables users to check the listing of a pool of goods or services. Then, make orders, rate, and review the listings.

The protocol utilizes its token to enable rewards that can either be positive or negative payments. These rewards provide security to the platform also serve as the governance token.

Problems of Existing Marketplace

The already existing sharing economy marketplaces like Airbnb, Fiverr, Uber, and TaskRabbit have numerous deficiencies. Some of them include:

1. Inequitable value capture.
2. Data Siloing by private companies.
3. Possibility of lack of remodeling.
4. Random policy alterations.

We have explained in detail below why these problems are a big challenge. So, let’s

Inequitable Value Capture

The quantity of value collected by trusted third parties is often not correspondent with the amount of value they provide. Additionally, the collected value focuses on the platform operators rather than users.

For instance, a company like Airbnb has over $100B in market value. Airbnb established an effective platform that provides easy digitalized booking and reviewing.

Presently, the platform has been established as its marketplace increases organically as both users and hosts actively utilize the platform. However, Airbnb charges the hosts 3-5% and guests 5-15% upon each transaction.

This implies that Airbnb can capture as much as 20% upon each transaction. Notwithstanding if the host company does extra work. Airbnb also places automatic taxes on hosts. For instance, the taxes for Hotels in Atlanta, Seattle, or Chicago, for example, are 16%. Although, Airbnb is not the only platform that charges these outrageous fees.

Other travel agencies like Expedia and Booking.com charge affiliate hotels15-30% on transactions. And car-sharing businesses like Uber charge up to 255 of each transactional value.

These commission fees can even escalate to 39% in some locations like  SanFransisco. The unfair value is being awarded to the platform operators and not the users.

Data Siloing by Private Companies

Each marketplace provider governs a valuable yet inaccessible database of users and their transactional data. In most cases, these companies monetize the data without the consent of the user(s). The consideration is in making user data controlled by the users, not marketplace operators.

Prospective Lack of Change

Several features make some companies hold monopolistic positions in their specific marketplace. Companies like Craiglist, the first products and mainstream services marketplace.

Craiglist has stayed at the top for more than 20 years, regardless of its poor user interface and experience. The platform lacks a reliable reputation and payment system.

In Craiglist, both the buyer and seller have to meet physically to do transactions. Numerous Craiglist competitors have failed despite their innovative experiences and effective payment systems. This is because Craiglist has network effects and first-mover dominance over its market.

Random Policy Changes and Control

Companies that provide marketplaces alter the rules and policies at will and randomly. In specific situations, the effects are in favor of its users; other times, they aren’t. There are instances of the marketplace controllers shutting down and maltreating members who added value to them.

For example, Uber increased its commission from drivers from 15% regular to 30% over time. And the drivers were incapable of changing them.

In 2017, Airbnb posted a notice on ejecting guests who rented apartments who intended to attend the Ku Klux Klan rally. A few people commiserated with KKK members who spread violent and racists ideology.

However, it’s a sensitive action for Airbnb to make a self-governed decision on who should utilize their services. What would happen to members with a controversial opinion? The marketplace founders have learned not to allow mainstream interference with any decision from the marketplace buyers & sellers.

Finally, a good example of the relevance of cryptocurrencies in our world today is the case of Wikilies. He was able to survive the blockade of the US banking system due to Bitcoin donations that were coming from supporters. Wikilies built tools that allow transactions among individuals in a distributed and trustless manner.

With all hands on deck, we can eliminate centralization (single point of failure) that limits our freedom and trust.

Origin Protocol Founders and Investors

Matthew Liu and Josh Fraser launched the origin protocol in 2017. The headquarters of the protocol is located in San Francisco. It has several investors from different parts of the world. The two CEOs worked together in 2016 to establish a company known as price slash.

Matthew Liu is a product manager and a software engineer. He has gained several years of experience in the blockchain sector. Liu also worked with YouTube as the product manager before co-founding the origin protocol with Josh Fraser.

Josh Fraser was the founder of three other companies before co-founding the origin protocol. He is an entrepreneur with a decade of active participation in the cryptocurrency world.

In addition, Josh was once a CTO for one social networking platform. The origin protocol team members are made up of about 17 professionals from over seven countries.

The team is made up of individuals with a common interest in blockchain technology.  Yu Pan is the Protocol’s founding engineer. He was formerly a Google staff and the first YouTube employee.  Yu Pan was among the six founders of PayPal and also a co-founder of Kiwi Crate.

Frank Chastagnol is another prominent member of the Origin project team. He is the V.P of Engineering. in the project. He has worked with various high-profile companies as the Engineering Lead. The companies include Dropbox, YouTube, Dropbox, Google, and Inktomi.

Other origin protocol team members are Micah Alcorn– the product Director; Kay Yoo- the Finance and Operations Officer. In addition, Coleman Maher is the Business Development Manager, and Mila Choi serves as the Korea Regional Manager. There are also community team members and protocol advisors.

Investors

The Origin project has attracted over eight hundred investors globally. These investors include but are not limited to Hashed from Korea, Spartan and QCP Capital from Singapore, Pantera Capital, and Blockchain.com.

There are angels or special individual investors who also made a special impact in developing the Origin protocol. They are Alexis Ohanian, who founded Reddit, and Steve Chen, the founder of YouTube.

Their individual and collective interest has never gone down in ensuring that the project excels.

How it Works

The origin protocol launched an application that one can download for easy accessibility and use of the platform.

The app-enable users to buy & sell cryptos without intermediaries. The platform presently has three modes of payment, including OGN, DAI, and Ethereum. The three main components of the network are the Developer Infrastructure, End-User DApp, and Open-Source protocols.

How the protocol works is outlined below;

1. The buyers and sellers carry out their transactions using the ‘flagship’ marketplace app on the platform.
2. The developer infrastructure is designed to simply greatly- the third party development process. The protocol also launched a special tool known as the ‘Marketplace Creator’ This tool allows potential operators to create a marketplace with or without any skill in programming.
3. The protocol is open-sourced with transactions and user data stored in the Ethereum blockchain. With this, third parties can query the protocol for the following; the reputation of the sellers and buyers, the history of old transactions, and the recent listings available.

These three components make launching a ‘marketplace’ or selling and buying activities on the network very possible and easy.

Dealing with Scaling

The Origin network uses an IPFS (Interplanetary File System), and it is built on the Ethereum blockchain. All the network data like availability and pricing are directly stored on this blockchain. But Metadata like reputations, descriptions, images, and reviews are kept on the ‘IPFS.’

Storing data on the IPFS is generally less expensive compared to storing it in the blockchain. The configuration is used for scaling, and it reduces cost.

Value Proposition

Origin has a relatively straightforward valued proposition. The network saves lots of money for users who buy and sell on the platform. To achieve this, middlemen like Fiverr and TaskRabbit are eliminated. The buyers and sellers now carry out transactions among themselves with zero transaction fees.

The platform provides increased accessibility across the users so that anyone with a smartphone can access the marketplace.

The protocol also recognizes behaviors that add to the growth of the platform. The network gives monetary rewards to users who promote listings, refer new members, drive transactions, and builds safe infrastructure or applications.

More so, the platform is censorship trustless and resilient. It has no particular point of failure. Hence, buyers and sellers can interact using any pseudonyms. The Origin app is present and can be downloaded on Google play store and iOS. For now, it is only one marketplace app that exists.

What Makes Origin Protocol Unique?

The vision of this protocol lies in creating a system where members can promote all their products. This type of system is called ‘a distributed system’.

The protocol aims to adopt a decentralized peer-to-peer network between traders to eliminate traditional intermediaries.  The team focuses on achieving free trading of goods & services at their real market value without the inference of any third party.

Origin network wants to make available an environment that is conducive for the participants of its online market by implementing the following;

Lower transaction fees

The protocol allows users access to stable rates of goods & services. It eliminates the need for any intermediary that collects fees before processing transactions.

Improved incentivization system

The network rewards users through the incentivization mechanism for their contributions to the network. This is typical of an open-sourced protocol. The protocol users like affiliates earn crypto tokens by marketing or promoting the listings generated by token sellers. The idea of incentivizing the users is to encourage them to keep the network growing.

Better Accessibility

The Origin allows both the banked and unbanked users access to the marketplace. Unlike traditional sharing, consumers need a credit card, bank account details, or other payment means. There is no consideration for the underprivileged groups.

Is Origin Protocol Secure?

The OGN token is an ERC-20 compliant token built on the Ethereum blockchain. Therefore, you can preserve or store it with any ERC-20 token wallet.

The network utilizes its IPFS (Interplanetary File System) to ensure the security and integrity of the peer-to-peer data transfers.

What is OGN Token?

The OGN is a native token for the Origin Protocol. It is an Ethereum token that powers the Origin platform. Users can use OGN is for governance, advertising, and staking in ‘the Origin’ ecosystem.

OGN requires up to 35 network confirmations during its transaction process.  The minimum amount of OGN for withdrawal is 15.26, according to Coinbase.

The maximum volume of OGN a user can send to an external address is 137,500. The Origin team was able to make about USD 38 from only private investors during their ICO.

At the time of writing, the OGN price is $0.6455, and the CoinMarketCap ranking is significant as well. It has a 24-hour trading volume of USD 75,292,023 with a live market cap of USD 218,740,530.

Image Credit: CoinMarketCap

The OGN also has a total of 313,699,951 OGN coins in circulation. However, the maximum supply is not available.

Individuals that wish to buy the Origin token should visit exchanges that currently support its trades. They include Bitz, Huobi, Global, Coinbase Exchange, and BinanceUpbit. Others are listed on the crypto exchanges page.

OGN users can earn more tokens from buying or selling the coins. And also by participating in the network’s referral program.

Origin Protocol Review Conclusion

There are lots of things that intending users will appreciate about this project. First, the unique tools and features adopted by the project team members are priceless; they are completely free. This implies that the commission or transaction fee is zero, and creating a marketplace is easy and free, unlike other platforms.

The Origin Protocol’s team consists of professionals with remarkable success in their formal businesses. The project’s whitepaper and webpage are in detail, and the app is also user-friendly. The platform is transparent, and all updates on the protocol are always there on Origin protocol’s ‘medium page.’

The Origin protocol team has over forty partnerships and a total of eight hundred investors. They were able to get up to USD 38million during their initial coin offering (ICO).

The team adopted the strategy of community growth to ensure the rapid growth of the protocol. This includes visiting and introducing the Origin protocol app to different countries.

However, intending and old users need to get familiar with both the app and the Origin e-commerce store. They are both good options.

However, the former accepts cryptocurrency while the latter use credit card as a payment option. This is an advantage for users. They can now choose the one that best suits them.

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