Little Known Cryptocurrency Omicron¡¯s Value Gets On A Rollercoaster After Covid Variant Named After It

From hovering around the $65 mark on 26 November 2021 to surging up to $687 on November 29th, and then nosediving to close to the $320 mark on December 2nd 2021, the lesser-known cryptocurrency Omicron is having a rollercoaster ride for the past week.

From shooting up to almost 11 times its value and then falling down to almost half of that value, everything¡¯s happened courtesy of this cryptocurrency sharing the same name with the new covid variant Omicron.

However, the naming was also a coincidence in the sense that, the WHO skipped not just one but two Greek alphabet letters-Nu and XI. As per the WHO, naming the variant "Nu" could have led to confusion as it could be mistaken for the English word ¡°new¡±, and using the letter XI could have risked stigmatizing a region. Hence, they went ahead with the naming as Omicron.

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For the uninitiated, Omicron's official website describes the coin as a "decentralized currency protocol built on Arbitrum, implying that it operates on the Ethereum layer two network Arbitrum. The token is backed by several other cryptocurrencies including the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin and liquidity provider tokens.

Also Read: Govt Regulation Is Good: Five Crypto Startups React To India's Crypto Bill Noise

This crypto, which was barely known of existence before the past week and was rather trading steadily, has suddenly come into the spotlight. Remember another similar instance in the recent past where such a surge happened despite no connection being there between the two things sharing the same name? It was the Squid game crypto, which shared its name with the hit Netflix show series, that had initially skyrocketed for a few days, after which it crashed massively. The sharp nosedive in Omicron¡¯s value after the surge indicates similar things.

Moreover, as per the Greek alphabet order being followed by the WHO to name Covid-19 variants, the next Greek letter in line is Pi, which also has a cryptocurrency named after it!

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