Origin Protocol was launched by Josh Fraser and Matthew Liu. Since his childhood, Mr. Fraser has been coding and has been involved in the crypto industry since as early as 2011. He is the founder of the web optimization company Torbit, later acquired by Walmart Labs. Mr. Liu is a Stanford engineering alumnus that has been involved in crypto since 2014 and participated in the Ethereum crowd-sale in 2014. The protocol’s founding engineer is Yu Pan, a former co-founder of Paypal and ex-Google executive.

Origin’s lead investor is Pantera Capital, and other investors include Foundation Capital, Blocktower, Steve Chen (founder of YouTube), Alexis Ohanian (co-founder of Reddit), and Garry Tan (partner at Y Combinator).

Origin Protocol aims to unlock value in crypto-centric opportunities across several verticals.

Origin Story marketplaces grant creators and collectors more control over their content and digital products. Each white label marketplace offers an integrated data analytics dashboard, aggregated marketplace listings, streamlined buying experiences, and custom aesthetics aligned with the client’s brand.

Furthermore, Origin Story’s NFT tooling offers ways for brands to utilize non-fungible tokens in unique ways. The protocol supports token-gated access, soulbound tokens, various file formats, NFT auctions, and more for creators to make the most out of their non-fungible tokens. In order to reach a larger user base, Story marketplaces support Polygon, and Origin is actively evaluating other scaling solutions.

Another key part of Origin Protocol is its stablecoin Origin Dollar (OUSD). This fully collateralized stablecoin does not require staking or lock-up periods and automatically accrues yield to user wallets. Yield is earned through blue-chip DeFi protocols such as Curve, Convex, Compound, and Aave, yet it earns higher APYs due to its unique rebasing mechanic. Only user wallets accrue yield, so funds held in smart contracts act as a multiplier on users’ yield.

Origin Dollar Governance (OGV) was airdropped to OGN holders in the Summer of 2022. OGV is the governance token for Origin Dollar, and it’s used to vote on collateral allocations across DeFi pools and accrues value through the stablecoin protocol’s revenue.

The Origin Token (OGN) is the governance and value accrual token for the entire Origin Platform. Token holders can vote on the following proposals:

• Adding/removing new types of yield-earning strategies.
• Allocating capital across a basket of strategies.
• Determining what fees are charged by the protocol.
• Determining what incentives are offered on an ongoing basis.

10% of the yields generated by OUSD are collected as a fee and used to buy back OGN. OGN holders benefit from OUSD supply expansion, because with a higher supply of OUSD, generated fees that flow to OGN holders increase as well. The total supply of OGN is 1 billion according to the following distribution:

• Advisor Sale: 4.38% at $0.0685
• Strategic Sale: 23.75% at $0.12
• CoinList Sale: 4.84% at $0.1364
• Team tokens: 20.24%
• Advisor Grants: 1.69%
• Foundation Reserves: 31.37%
• Ecosystem Growth Funds: 12.99%
• Long-term Partnerships: 0.73%

OGN is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum.

The Origin Protocol is on a path of continuous decentralization and is currently in the second of four phases of decentralization. Origin Protocol stresses that decentralization is only related to the protocol and does not extend to centralized applications like peer-to-peer payments or debit cards built on OUSD.

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