Peer-to-peer trading company Origin announces Origin Dollars, or OUSD, a stablecoin whose reserves leverage decentralized finance (DeFi) so that balance sheets are always positive, without the need to make staking or open personal accounts.
Making DeFi accessible to all
“One thing about DeFi that is clear to everyone is that only a small audience can understand it. The barrier to entry is very high, ”Origin cofounder Matthew Liu said in a statement to the media.
"We want to make DeFi much more accessible." OUSD will be supported at a 1: 1 ratio by the three big stablecoins on Ethereum: USDT from Tether, USDC from Circle and Coinbase and DAI from MakerDAO.
Users can mint OUSD by depositing any of these three stablecoins in the new Origin app, or they can simply purchase it on Uniswap. After that, the OUSD will start growing in their portfolio without having to take any further action.
Origin will take user deposits and start growing them in different protocols, starting with the Money Market DeFi Compound. Origin's three initial strategies are loan deposit returns, automated market maker fees, and growing token mining.
To launch OUSD, “as a company, we will probably roll out a few hundreds of thousands,” said Origin co-founder Josh Fraser. "As time goes by and when we feel safer, we will invest millions of dollars."
OUSD as a brand
Origin raised $ 3 million in a Pantera-led round in 2017 and then sold $ 6,6 million of its OGN token in a Coinlist sale in 2018. OGN is used to incentivize people to change, participate fully in the platform, and entice others to participate.
Liu said OUSD overlaps Origin's broader vision of facilitating peer-to-peer trading, removing any friction between earnings and expenses. OUSD will also be integrated across all stores in Origin's DShop, its e-commerce platform.
As noted in the OUSD announcement post, "For traders who have traditionally been skeptical of receiving cryptocurrency payments, being able to accept a productive tool that beats traditional savings accounts is a powerful motivator."
However, it must be recognized that there is a risk. If Origin ever had invested in a pool that has somehow failed, for example due to a hack or fatal error, then it should remove OUSD from circulation, which is why it starts with Compound and expands with caution.
Origin's return strategies will soon extend from Compound to projects such as Aave and dYdX, moving to Balancer and others, just like they did for Yearn.Finance. But OUSD is also very different from Yearn. “It will never give the maximum yield available because we are focusing more on its safety,” Liu said.
