What's in a name? Omicron crypto price jumps after variant makes waves

Since the scare of the new Covid variant-Omicron, the price of a cryptocurrency called Omicron has risen manifold.

The price of this cryptocurrency had galloped 10 times in a span of two days. It jumped from $64 on November 27 to $692 on November 29.

However, it settled at around $420 per Omicron on Tuesday.

Analysts say that this surge was purely due to the name it shares with the new Covid variant.

“The World Health Organization (WHO) issued warning around the new Covid-19 variant ‘Omicron’, while the price of a relatively lesser-known cryptocurrency with the same name rallied due to its resemblance to the name of the new Covid-19 variant,” said Kshitij Purohit, Lead Currency & Commodities at CapitalVia Global Research.

Analysts point out that the trading in Omicron was purely based on speculations and compared it with trading in Dogecoin.

Global marketing head of Kristal.AI Siddhant Raizada said, “This is like Dogecoin which is driven by speculation but did not have any use case. Omicron crypto is not backed by any project, hence there is no utility to justify the usage of this token. There is no rationale as to why its prices should go up or be of any value. Its completely arbitrary and speculative”.

In one year, Dogecoin had rallied over 6,000%. However, its price had remained flat in the five years until April this year when the rally began.

Prior to the announcement of the new Covid-19 variant, the Omicron cryptocurrency had only touched a high of $205 and even immediately before the variant was announced, it was trading at around $64.

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