OMG Price Doubles as DeFi and Record Ethereum Fees Create 'Perfect Storm'

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.