Little Known Omicron Crypto Up 137% After New COVID-19 Variant Named

A relatively less known cryptocurrency called Omicron rose 137% and touched an all-time high of $692.11 Monday after a newly discovered COVID-19 variant in South Africa was named after the Greek letter by the World Health Organization.

The token shares the same name as the new coronavirus variant, which the WHO designated as a variant of concern Friday. The token was trading at around $65 on Saturday evening, and had risen by nearly 1,000% when it touched its all-time high.

The entire crypto market saw a crash after the variant was announced, on fears that new lockdowns and travel restrictions would deal a body blow to the global economy that is barely coming out of the devastation caused by the pandemic.

Bitcoin and most of the altcoins crashed below their support levels. However, Omicron (OMIC) zoomed up, garnering the attention of many investors.

The price of the OMIC token has generally trended up since Nov. 8. The 24-hour dollar volume of the OMIC token rose 88.09% and was at $567,211.61, with a market rank of 3,427.

OMIC was priced at $205 on Nov. 8, but fell below $100 by mid-November. It then staged a comeback, rising above $100 on Nov. 15, before the bears pulled it down below $100 on Nov. 17. It hit an all-time low of $47.89 on Nov. 19.

On Saturday, OMIC turned bullish, and in 24 hours the price went above $200. By the end of Sunday, an all-time high above $424 was witnessed. On Monday, the price fell below $300, reaching as low as $260, but soon rallied to a new all-time high at $692.11.

Traders also attributed Omicron’s bullish momentum to its relationship with OlympusDAO. According to official documentation, it is a “decentralized reserve currency protocol available on the Arbitrum Network1 based on the OMIC token,” and OMIC is the governance token for the protocol.

However, the cryptocurrency project called Omicron is not related to the virus, and there is nothing related to the virus mentioned in its whitepaper. The platform took to Twitter to inform holders about the growth of the token, cheekily suggesting that they “wear a mask when trading on arbitrum sushiswap.”