On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified and named a new COVID-19 variant – Omicron – that was first detected in South Africa. Over the past 72 hours, additional cases of Omicron infection have been found in Australia, Denmark, Netherlands, and Israel.
Physicians and health experts are not certain if the Omicron variant is more transmissible or causes more severe symptoms than existing strains. What is certain is the discovery and announcement of this new iteration, prompted sell-offs in stocks and cryptocurrencies.
However, the price of one small cryptocurrency – ironically named Omicron (OMIC) – has rocketed more than 500% since the WHO named the COVID-19 strain. As of Friday, Omicron was trading at about $60 per token, but it reached an all-time high of $431.69 as of 9:18am ET Sunday per the chart below from CoinMarketCap.com.