Omicron token soars 11x over weekend, loses 75% value overnight

Omicron Coin (OMIC), a lesser known cryptocurrency, was on a roller-coaster ride for three days. The digital token has shot as much as 1,100 per cent before giving up three-fourth of its value.

The token zoomed as much as 1,100 per cent to $711.09 on November 27 from $64.84 on November 29, before trading at $210.28 on the last day of the month at 6.45 am IST. Just 24 hours ago, it was trading at $466.22. In that period, OMIC worth about $781,000 have exchanged hands, data from Crypto.com suggested. In just one day, the token has eroded more than half its value, the data said.

After the World Health Organization (WHO) named the latest Covid strain Omicron on November 26, the nondescript token rose wildly, said Sharat Chandra, a Blockchain & Emerging Tech Evangelist.

The maximum supply of Omicron token is 1 million coins. It can be traded on only one platform, Sushiswap, a decentralised exchange. Its market cap is not available.

Such euphoric rise in tokens is often followed by a fall after the initial buzz subsides. Last week, major digital tokens witnessed a freefall of up to 20-25 per cent, whereas Omicron delivered a multibagger return. Such wild swings draw a lot of criticism across the globe.

“It might be another rug pull,” Chandra said. “Investors should be wary of such tokens till there is enough credible data to back the price trends of these tokens that are unheard of.”

Squid Game, a token named after Netflix series Squid Games, also saw a bizarre rally that eroded investor wealth.

Ishan Arora, Partner at Tykhe Block Ventures, said Omicron was a DeFI project built on ethereum L2 arbitrum. “It suddenly gained attention after the WHO named the new Covid strain Omicron in a bizarre coincidence. The price of the token shot up without any actual reason. It is similar to how Elon Musk mentioning Doge or Shiba Inu caused a short-term effect in the tokens,” he added.