Following the WHO’s identification of the newest COVID-19 version, FOMO has gripped crypto speculators who have been stockpiling Omicron tokens.
Omicron (OMIC), a relatively unknown cryptocurrency, has risen to an all-time high today after a new fast-spreading COVID-19 variation was given the same name.
During the Monday morning Asian trading session, Omicron’s OMIC token reached an all-time high of $689. The move has increased the token’s value by another 200 percent on the day and by a stunning 945 percent since Saturday, when it was trading at $65.
The token is named after a novel Covid-19 type that was found on November 23 in South Africa. The fast-spreading B.1.1.529 strain was named after the fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet by the World Health Organization. The big price surge, according to crypto critic “Mr. Whale,” is an indication that things are in a “giant bubble.”
A crypto token named after the new COVID-19 variant ‘Omicron’ is up over 650% within the 3 days, and is now worth over $400 million.
If this isn’t a sign we’re in a giant bubble, I don’t know what is. pic.twitter.com/7ESD1v9wgF
— Mr. Whale (@CryptoWhale) November 28, 2021On the Ethereum layer two network Arbitrum, Omicron is a decentralized reserve money system. The USDC stablecoin and liquidity provider tokens are among the crypto assets backing its native OMIC token.
It can only be exchanged on the SushiSwap decentralized exchange, which according to CoinGecko has had $454,000 in trading for the OMIC/USDC pair in the last 24 hours. There are no more statistics on OMIC supply or market cap on the token analytics website. The bond-based yield farming project originated as a fork of the OlympusDAO DeFi protocol in early November, but it has no more ties to the virus except the name.
The news of the new COVID variation spread sent stock markets tumbling late last week, and Black Friday saw a big sell-off that wiped away November gains for the S&P 500Â Index and the Nasdaq Composite.
However, as the new week begins, things are looking up, with crypto markets back in the black at the time of writing, after plummeting to their lowest levels since mid-October on Saturday. According to CoinGecko, total market value has increased by 5.6 percent in the last 24 hours to $2.71 trillion.
