Stablecoin issuer Tether says that Tether (USDT) has gone live on the OMG Network transport layer.

OMG Network (OMG), which formerly (until 1 June 2020) was known as OmiseGo, is “a trustless, non-custodial, Layer-2 scaling solution for transferring value on Ethereum.”

OMG Network claims to be

  • Fast (“Transfer ETH and ERC20 tokens with a throughput of thousands of transactions per second”)
  • Cheap (“Operate your business or project at 1/3rd the average cost of the Ethereum Network”)
  • Secure (“Ethereum-level security supported by a decentralized watcher network and smart contract adjudicators”)
  • Green (“Reduce electricity usage by potentially 99% per transaction compared to Ethereum”)
  • Open (“Build apps, dApps, developer tools and more on an open and permissionless network”)
  • Trustless (“Your assets remain secure on the Ethereum Network and are fully recoverable at any time”)

Tether published a blog post on Wednesday (August 19) that said USDT holders will benefit from this integration since they will be able to make faster payments at a lower cost than with Ethereum but without needing to comprise on security.

Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Bitfinex and Tether, had this to say:

“At Tether we are committed to driving innovation and improvements to our service to better support our customers

“By migrating USDt value transfers to the OMG Network we save costs, drive performance improvements and relieve pressure on the root chain network.

“This is good for Bitfinex and our customers, and the whole Ethereum ecosystem.”

And Vansa Chatikavanij, CEO at OMG Network, said:

“Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of Tether on the OMG Network that supports thousands of transactions per second at a third of the cost of the same transaction on Ethereum.

“We’re delighted to address these fundamental issues and drive further growth and adoption of open financial services.”

According to Ardoino, OMG Network will also help with USDT deposits/withdrawals at Bitfinex:

“This will allow traders to react faster to trading opportunities and take advantage of arbitrage more efficiently between exchanges as the network grows.”

This is how Tether’s blog post explained the problem with the current version of Ethereum:

“The Ethereum blockchain is a valuable but limited resource, which, under heavy demand is vulnerable to severe network congestion.

“As each block has only a finite space available to users, total transaction throughput is capped at approximately 12 TPS.

“When transaction demand exceeds 12 TPS, settlement times increase and gas costs can rise significantly.”

Crypto exchange Bitfinex first announced its plan to integrates Tether (USDT) on OMG Network for “faster, cheaper transaction” on 1 June 2020.

The excitement around yesterday’s launch seems to have hugely helped the price of OMG to appreciate.

According to data from CryptoCompare, OMG was trading as low as $1.666 one week ago:

Currently (as of 08:58 UTC on August 20), OMG is trading around $3.694, up 33.94% in the past 24-hour period:

Featured Image by “xresch” via Pixabay.com

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.