The Near-Complete OmiseGO Reference: October 2017

This article is written for those who are getting their “information” from so called YouTube and Reddit “experts” who scanned through the whitepaper and website before uploading highly inaccurate posts. It is written with the intent of keeping the original language when possible and will state relationships the way they are currently known with public references. It is not a static article as OmiseGO is not a static company.

From their website:

“OmiseGO is a public Ethereum-based financial technology for use in mainstream digital wallets, that enables real-time, peer-to-peer value exchange and payment services agnostically across jurisdictions and organizational silos, and across both fiat money and decentralized currencies. Designed to enable financial inclusion and disrupt existing institutions, access will be made available to everyone via the OmiseGO network and digital wallet framework, starting in Q4 2017.”

Misunderstood Details

Public and Permission-less: Anyone can use the finished network and Omise will not own it. Omise holds OMG and benefits by network effects but any mainstream digital wallet or institution can plug in to use it without a formal partnership. OmiseGO is not in direct competition with TenX or even Visa but allows a means to overcome the silos between them and empower customers and merchants to transact however they wish.

Currency agnostic — A mobile wallet provider could adapt their use of the network such that customers registered in China only have access to spend digital PBOC* while those from another country may hold/spend any digital currency, including decentralized ones such as Bitcoin (BTC). In fact, it provides a means for customers to readily pay with any transferrable digital asset (gaming points, rewards, etc…) through the decentralized exchange. “The central OmiseGO asset is not necessarily Ether, and there are no exchange-held Ether reserves by design (any currency can be locked up for trading)… what assets are used for interchange/currency crossing depends on what the market wants to trade through and where the liquidity and efficiencies are… Market decides.” (taken from a post from omise_go)

*China is one of many countries stated to be working on creation of their own digital currency PBOC

Three layers constitute OmiseGO’s main framework:

From a recent OmiseGO Medium Article:

“(1) The white-label wallet SDK layer

This provides standardized features to so-called digital wallet service providers. OmiseGO will add more and more to this top layer as a “standard base” for others to build applications upon. While we must start somewhere, it is our ultimate goal to simplify the creation of new digital wallets to the point where they require little to no developer support.

(2) Decentralized exchange (DEX) layer

We believe that the future is all about eliminating the middlemen in your exchange orderbook. The cost of exchange should be no greater than the cost of maintaining the decentralized network that exchange happens on. All transaction orders will therefore be managed on the DEX chain and validated by OMG stakers (this is Proof-of-Stake consensus, or PoS), who collectively and dynamically determine the fees that are necessary to keep the network running.

(3) Scalability network mechanism layer

OmiseGO was designed for the Plasma architecture, which structures blockchain computation into MapReduce functions and uses a combination of proof-of-stake token bonding and the network security provided by a separate root chain to safely enable unprecedented transaction processing speed. For further information about Plasma, please visit plasma.io.”

Omise Background:

Omise is a pre-existing successful financial technology (Fintech) company that was founded in 2013 and describes itself as a “full-featured payment management platform”. They were featured in Forbes Thailand in October 2016 as “Fintech Rockstars”.

Their relationship with Ethereum began long before anyone started talking about ICOs and they “supported Vitalik’s work since little more than a roomful of people were even aware of it”. Omise’s blockchain lab was started in 2015, the same year they provided a $100,000 grant to the Ethereum Foundation’s Devgrants program. From that they have been involved in funding the development of Raiden through to proof of concept and development of plasma through 2017 well before its public announcement.

OmiseGO Technical Background:

OmiseGO is the first plasma.io project (an Ethereum based project that dramatically increases the scalability). It is one of only three projects that Vitalik Buterin is officially advising and Joseph Poon (known for Lightning network) is directly involved, having co-written their whitepaper. Plasma is expected to be handle at least 1 million tps when fully implemented.

ICO

OmiseGO had a very reasonable public ICO as discussed in an article by TechCrunch titled: “Fintech startup Omise raises $25 million in ICO that bucks ‘money grabbing’ trend”. They had >100 million in pre-sale interest alone but declined to raise more than they needed. Further to ensure distribution they required participants to register and the max contribution was 1 ETH.

Airdrop

To further distribution and increase the robustness of the POS network, OmiseGO included a plan for 5% of their token to be airdropped to ETH holders in their crowdsale document. Importantly, this drop has taken place and did not require any action by recipients - any mention of an ongoing Airdrop is a scam. The further information about the airdrop (including the code used) can be found here.

OmiseGO Ecosystem

Primer:
A cashless society describes an economic state whereby financial transactions are not conducted with money in the form of physical banknotes or coins, but rather through the transfer of digital information (usually an electronic representation of money) between the transacting parties. Whether you like it or not, the push towards cashless societies appears inevitable and has already begun. In Sweden, cash represents barely 1% of the value of all payments and 900 of 1600 banks simply don’t do cash. The global mobile wallet market is estimated to reach 3.14 trillion by 2022. Apple, Android, and Samsung pay are absent in parts of Asia and Africa due to a need for a credit card and existing banking infrastructure. OmiseGO is a payment and settlement platform that offers the large corporations a way to overcome this reliance while simultaneously giving smaller digital wallet companies an opportunity to compete with greater efficiency. Omise has thousands of merchant clients and had a 10x increase in growth over the past year.

The four core challenges according to Jun’s Medium Article — Strategy Volume 01:

1. Limited availability of digital currencies or online payment acceptance by merchants.
2. Siloed wallet and payment services impeding the usability and functionality.
3. Low rate of credit card adoption. This is particularly true in the Asia-Pacific region where information about a user’s credit score, needed to apply for credit card, is not as easily accessible.
4. Continued limited coverage and penetration of traditional financial services- e.g. bank branches, bank accounts.

The other day Jun, the CEO of OmiseGO tweeted this statement:

“Building relation / connectivity 15 different financial institutions across 4 regions.”

While we do not know which exact financial institutions and four regions (they haven’t been formally announced) we do have access to the public information that is available below that gives a picture of the current ecosystem. The following will discuss Thailand, Singapore, Japan, and then a couple details globally.

Thailand
In late December (2016), the cabinet approved the Finance Ministry’s national e-payment master plan to promote electronic payment across the board with a view to creating a cashless society. Few people know however that Thailand has actually launched a new interbank mobile payments system “to enable money transfers that were cheaper and easier than those offered by conventional banks”. The system is called PromptPay and authorization in participation is by the Finance Ministry. Thai Alliance Payment System is one of two bank consortiums that was granted authorization by the Finance Ministry and includes the following five: Siam Commercial Bank, Krungthai Bank, Bank of Ayudhya, Thanachart Bank and TMB Bank.

How is Omise/OmiseGO positioned?

• The Ministry of Finance successfully launched use of Omise FacePay technology.
• Omise awarded “Digital Startup of the year” (the Prime Minister’s Digital Award)
• Omise joined the Thailand E-Payment Trade Association
• Omise currently supported banks for their API include all 5 of those listed above
• Omise has a new strategic investment from Thai Bank Krungsri
• Omise met with the Central Bank of Thailand (with Vitalik Buterin)

Thailand’s E-Payment System
Thailand’s three biggest e-payment service providers included: Paysbuy, AIS (mPAY), and TrueMoney.

• In addition to the thousands of online merchants they already had, Omise recently acquired Paysbuy
• TrueMoney is a partner and shareholder. “By integrating with OmiseGO, the TrueMoney digital wallet end-customers will be able to conduct real-time low-cost money transfers, cross border remittances, retail, and bill payments. They will also be able to interact with other digital wallet providers (“brands”) that subscribe to the OmiseGO network.” (Crowdsale Document)

Who is TrueMoney?
“TrueMoney was founded in 2003 as part of True Corporation but now reorganized under Ascend Group in 2014, a spin-off of True Corporation and a subsidiary of C.P. Group.” The C.P. Group is the sole operator of over 9000 of the 7’Eleven stores that allow TrueMoney to “make use of its extensive 7’Eleven network in the country. The service produced other spin-offs like WeCard, in partnership with MasterCard, and TrueMoney Cash Card, for specialized top-up services like gaming… TrueMoney has offices in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia and the Philippines. TrueMoney has licenses to operate e-money in almost every Southeast Asian country. As the flagship venture, Thailand’s TrueMoney counts Google and Alipay as partner payment platforms.”

• To me that connection with Google sheds a different light on this tweet at Google Thailand but no formal relationship has been detailed.

TrueMoney is connected to the PromptPay system through Siam Commercial Bank. This way “more members of the public can enjoy easy, convenient access to financial services via PromtPay, which has until now only been available via a bank account” and “SCB will serve the more than three million TrueMoney customers by letting them top up eWallet Prompt Pay through the bank’s three major channels: SCB Easy App, SCB Easy Net and ATMS, which are all available 24 hours a day”.

Singapore
According to this Bloomberg article “Singapore and Thailand are in discussions about connecting their national digital payment systems to forge an unprecedented regional alliance, as officials step up efforts to curb the use of cash.” It would link PromptPay and Singapore’s PayNow project. The Singapore banks involved include: Citibank Singapore Limited, DBS Bank/POSB, HSBC, Maybank, OCBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, and United Overseas Bank.

Recently, the Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong made a public call to simplify and enhance their E-payment system (while also creating a common QR code) as part of their Smart Nation initiative. The CEO of Razer was quick to begin recruitment and later submitted a proposal.

How is Omise/OmiseGO positioned?

• OmiseGO is registered in Singapore
• Omise/OmiseGO was quick to offer to help the project for a unified e-payment system.
• As mentioned, Omise has ties to PromptPay through TrueMoney and the relationship to Siam Commercial Bank.

Japan
Meanwhile in Japan there are talks of launching a digital currency via the banks to push towards a cashless society before the Olympics in 2020.

How is Omise/OmiseGO positioned?

• Omise’s first office outside Thailand was in Japan.
• OmiseGO is involved setting up a blockchain accelerator set up in Japan with Global Brain and Digix.
• Remember that strategic partnership with Bank of Ayudhya (Krungsri). Bank of Ayudhya is actually owned by the largest bank in Japan MUFG.
• SMBC is the second largest bank in Japan and was an early investor in OmiseGO (scroll to bottom).
• OmiseGO is partnering with Credit Saison, the third largest credit card company in Japan. Credit Saison is affiliated with Mihuzo, the third largest bank in Japan.
• Omise/OmiseGO is collaborating with Toppan Printing to start offering a sales support settlement service that will allow product sales by posting a dedicated QR code together with product introduction on the promotional medium.

Photo From Recent Wired Japan Article Featuring Ethereum and OmiseGO

Globally
Alipay is a leader in online and mobile payments. It has 520,000,000 users and it is making its way to the US. Alipay has seen more than 1 billion transactions in a day.

Alipay is connected via investment to Ascend (the corporation invested in TrueMoney and Omise/OmiseGO):
“Ant Financial, the company behind China’s digital payment giant Alipay, has ramped up its global expansion with an investment in Thailand’s Ascend Money.”

Omise has already been involved in Fintech that allowed merchants to accept Alipay outside of China without needing to have a Chinese bank account.

Recent Developments:

Hubii Network recently announced they will be using OmiseGO for their payment system. Hubii is an existing content distribution platform with 50M users that is decentralizing their marketplace and using smart contracts to make sure creators get paid.

OmiseGO recently met up with Greylock Partners to discuss the future of Omise and OmiseGO. Greylock Partners is a leading venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley with $3.5 billion under management. They have an impressive list of companies including many I have used this past month: Facebook, Instagram, AirBnB, and Coinbase.

Current Project Status

From the very recent OmiseGO Medium Article:

To summarize, they have come up with “a product deployment plan which will allow us to securely build out the three layers, while continuing to release more and more complex features to the market.” They have “decided to test our first and second layers with our longterm partner, Cosmos Network, who are also the creators of Tendermint. This collaboration allows us to market-test our solution very soon in an intermediate scalability environment. It also gives OMG stakers an introduction to our PoS protocol, by beginning to participate in validating transactions. This temporary environment will scale sufficiently to allow OmiseGO to provide support for Omise’s existing customers, while we work towards our end goal: a fully-permissionless and infinitely-scalable public Plasma chain.” It is also mentioned that “OmiseGO network will support Omise’s entire existing customer base” and “Many world-class corporate and financial institutions are showing an interest in utilizing the OmiseGO network for their existing mega-businesses, so we are always thinking about how we can effectively serve them as a platform. As it stands, we believe that we have a realistic way to onboard them — perhaps faster than the market thinks is possible.”

Roadmap Details

SDK Wallet: Complete by Q4 and released into the hands of developers Q1 of 2018.

OmiseGO network: First public release Q1 to Q2 of 2018 with subsequent improvements via implementations of Plasma incrementally thereafter.

Cash In/Out Points: This solution has been known since the crowdsale document was released. It is described as being available “24 hours a day, 365 days a year” and at that time was stated to include “more than 6000+ touch-points”. It has been stated that the solution is to be revealed this quarter.

Thank you for reading. I hope you found this educational. It is not investment advice.

Note: Some of this information may seem very familiar from three previous posts on Steemit. They are my posts as well under @solveforh. I compiled this information into one article on Medium because I prefer the layout and wanted to compress the information into a single article.

Reminder: This is not a static article. I add material when new announcements are made. I was keeping a log but it has become excessive as multiple announcements are made weekly.