The native token for OMG Network has more than doubled in the past week as record Ethereum fees lead some investors to look to layer 2 solutions.
- CoinGecko data shows OMG tokens have increased 115% from $1.70 to $3.65 in the past seven days – with the price surging by 30% in the past 24 hours.
- The rally means OMG's market cap has surged by approximately $275 million since this time last week.
- OMG's price has increased by nearly 1,000% since it fell to its all-time low of $0.35 after the Black Thursday crash in March.
- Denis Vinokourov, research head at crypto exchange BeQuant, told CoinDesk OMG Network was benefitting from a "perfect storm" of industry-wide developments.
- The craze around DeFi – a subset that has exploded to well over $6 billion – has seen a surge in activity on Ethereum, leading to soaring fees.
- There are also reports the testnet for Eth 2.0 – a new iteration that would make the blockchain platform much more scalable – crashed last week.
- As such, investors are beginning to look more closely at layer 2 solutions, he said.
- Ethereum's average transaction fees rapidly shot up from under $0.10 in January to nearly $3.40 currently – the first time fees have stayed so consistently high.
- Stablecoin Tether – a notable "gas guzzler" – said Wednesday it was launching on OMG Network so it could take some of the pressure off the base layer.
See also: Decentralized Finance Frenzy Drives Ethereum Transaction Fees to All-Time Highs
Additional reporting by Omkar Godbole.
CORRECTION (Aug 20, 09:30 UTC): A previous version of this article referred to OMG Network by its old name, OmiseGo. This has since been corrected.