Omicron token surges 900 per cent after announcement of new COVID-19 variant of concern
Crypto token Omicron (OMIC) soared by 900 per cent after the World Health Organisation announced a strain of COVID-19 of the same name to be a variant of concern.
The token was created in November by the OlympusDAO DeFi protocol and runs on the network Arbitrum. OMIC had been steadily trading at US$65 the previous week before hitting US$689 over the weekend.
After its weekend rally, the currency dropped to US$152.
The decentralised finance token has no relation to the COVID-19 variant apart from sharing the same Greek name. CoinMarketCap suggests that the systematic use of the Greek alphabet in naming new virus variants has meant that “long-sighted crypto opportunists have had plenty of time to launch new projects… knowing that they may attract attention in the future”.
After the announcement of the new COVID-19 variant over the weekend, most major crypto players fell slightly with Bitcoin sliding 10% to sit at US$53,500 and Etherium dropping by 13 per cent according to CoinMarketCap.
Volatility in the crypto market is often driven by notoriety in the real world. Earlier this month Squid Coin, created in honour of the popular Netflix series Squid Game, rose from US$0.70 to a peak of US$2.86 in the space of a week. The following day the coin fell to US$0.003.
