OMG Network

The OMG Network is a public, decentralized network that enables high-throughput, low-cost peer-to-peer transactions. Anyone can exchange value across regions, asset types, and applications via the OMG Network. Notably, OMG was previously known as OmiseGO. The OMG Network is built on Plasma, a framework developed by Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and blockchain specialist Joseph Poon.

The OMG Network employs the use of Layer-2 Plasma architecture to provide high throughput and safety guarantees for third parties who want to build a scalable, decentralized payment app on the Ethereum (ETH) network. The network employs users to access, manage, and deal with digital assets stored safely on the blockchain. Layer 2 is a secondary protocol built on an existing blockchain system. The goal of Layer 2 protocols is to solve the transaction speed and scaling difficulties that trouble cryptocurrency networks. 

The OMG Platform builds a value transfer layer on top of Ethereum that combines Ethereum transactions and verifies them through a speed-optimized child chain (blockchain) before returning them to the Ethereum blockchain for confirmation. Child chains (also called plasma chains) are separate blockchains that are connected to the main Ethereum chain.

Problem: Ethereum has scaling limitations. A blockchain protocol's scalability refers to its ability to support high transactional throughput and future growth. Ethereum can only handle about 14 transactions per second. This happens because blockchain networks employ intensive procedures for verifying the data. Thus, scaling has always been a subject of intense scrutiny in the blockchain industry.

Solution: OMG Network solves this scalability issue by implementing a scaling system called More Viable Plasma (MoreVP) to considerably increase transaction throughput. The OMG Foundation, in particular, bundles transactions, compresses them into a single transaction, and verifies them on the OMG Foundation child chain. The child chain then returns confirmed transactions to Ethereum for blockchain confirmation. The OMG Foundation can process thousands of transactions per second thanks to this bundling technique. Because gas fees (transaction fees on Ethereum) are paid on the bundled, compressed transaction rather than each individual transaction, transaction costs are one-third of what they would be on Ethereum.

Notably, the three main components of the OMG Network are:

OMG is the utility token of the platform and the primary mode of interaction with the platform. OMG is based on the ERC-20 token standard. 

OMG Network, as mentioned above, was known as OmiseGO and was launched in 2017. The company behind OmiseGO is Omise, a payment gateway provider headquartered in Thailand. Omise itself was founded in 2013. The initial coin offering (ICO) occurred in 2017 and raised $25 million.

The Omise team is led by Jun Hasegawa (CEO). Before working at Omise, Hasegawa was a director at Alpha-do Inc. and the cofounder and CEO of LIFEmee Inc. The other notable members of the Omise team are Ezra Don Harinsut (CEO/cofounder), Anuchit Chitpirom (chief operating officer), Frederico Araujo (chief information officer), June Seah (chief business development officer), Kazuhiro Koiso (chief financial officer), Nick Gan (chief growth officer), and Max Rokhline (chief product officer).

The whitepaper of the platform was published by Joseph Poon on June 17, 2017.

The platform employs the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus algorithm. A consensus algorithm is a procedure (method) that enables all blockchain network members to agree on the current state of the distributed ledger. Validators must stake OMG tokens to verify new blocks. The validators are compensated for validating the blockchain's activity. If a validator acts inappropriately, such as breaking consensus rules, their staked tokens will be burned on the OMG blockchain. Because staked OMG tokens are stored on the root chain, all OmiseGO validators must also run a full Ethereum node.

The total supply of OMG tokens is 140,245,398, out of which 65.1% was a public ICO, 5% was shared with users freely in their wallets, and 20% was kept as a reserve for the OMG Network. The remaining 9.9% have been reserved for the team. 

OMG Tokens can be purchased on Coinbase.