When the World Health Organization named the latest coronavirus variant “Omicron”, things took a dramatic twist. A little-known token called Omicron (OMIC) suddenly saw a price spike.
At just $65 in value before the WHO announcement, Omicron’s price shot to $675 by Sunday but the price has since fallen to $308.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, is up by $3k from a November 26 low — the day when the omicron virus news hit the markets.
Biden and Powell remarks’ ease tension
When WHO said that the heavily mutated variant posed a very high global risk, alarm ensued for fear the variant could resist vaccinations. As a result, airlines put travel restrictions to Southern Africa, the place Omicron virus was first detected.
However, investors stayed calm and latched on hope as they waited for more information, allowing the markets to rebound. The US President Joe Biden and Fed Chair Jerome Powell also gave a sigh of relief as they commented on the new development.
Biden urged Americans not to panic and said the government was working with pharmaceutical companies to make contingency plans if new vaccines were needed.
“This variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic,” Biden said in remarks at the White House following a meeting with his COVID-19 team. “We’re going to fight and beat this new variant.”
US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said the new variant muddies the outlook on inflation because prices could keep rising for longer than earlier thought.
The article continues to state that the rise in COVID-19 cases and the emergence of the new variant “pose downside risks to employment and economic activity and increased uncertainty for inflation,” Powell said in testimony prepared for delivery on Tuesday to the U.S. Senate.
Omicron token and other meme cryptocurrencies
It’s unknown when the omicron token was launched, but the impact of the coincidental naming effect can’t be ignored.
According to Reuters, the price of the hitherto-obscure digital token, whose Twitter feed has just a little over 1,000 followers, rose almost ten-fold from Friday to Monday morning when it hit $688, before tumbling as much as 75%.
As one writer says, we are in the age of investing by meme. Shiba Inu and Dogecoin are popular meme cryptocurrencies. Could the same be said for the Omicron token?
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