Mark Weaden
The price of 'Omicron' cryptocurrency soars, as the new variant sweeps the globe
As global markets fall in the wake of the Omicron coronavirus variant, there is one cryptocurrency that has benefited greatly from it. Hype is still the name of the game in crypto, notably in the area of meme coins, as we saw with the SQUID coin scam, which is why the price of Omicron is soaring.
The Omicron coin seemingly has no unique asset, beyond the hype riding off the back of the new variant. The coin rose in price almost ten-fold from Friday to Monday, before tumbling once again.
Omicron price soars
The hitherto-obscure digital token price soared to $688, before crashing back down as much as 75%. The coin has just 1,000 followers on Twitter, so it would appear that hype is all that this is.
The coin is described as a decentralized treasury-backed currency protocol, which indicates that it doesn’t have any underlying technology—unlike other major coins like Ethereum and Solana, which have also seen huge increases in price in Q4.
The headlines are flooded with news about the World Health Organization warning the world about the new Omicron variant, advising us on how best to avoid contact with it. The cases have been reported as “very high”, which could see a global surge of cases.
Cryptocurrency markets
While this isn’t good news for the global economy, the crypto markets aren’t slowing down. In the last 24 hours, we’ve seen struggling coins like Bitcoin soar back up to around $60,000. Bitcoin was really suffering at the end of last week, with the worst day in two months on Friday.
There has been talking of a market crash since the end of the summer, with many investors distancing themselves from crypto. However, we’ve seen all-time highs for the majority of major coins in the last two months.
In terms of meme coins, it’s been a very positive year. The ever-present Dogecoin is still amongst the most valuable coins, as well as the emergence of another dog-based crypto called Shiba Inu. It’s not clear whether Omicron will follow suit, but given the drop in price, this may be all we hear on this.
