Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OmiseGO


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. I strongly urge to moderate their contributions to AfD decisions, as these walls of text, spread out over numerous screens, make the task of the closing admin much harder. In the present case, several editors dispute the sources found by Cunard with strong policy-based arguments and there is a clear consensus to delete this article. Randykitty (talk) 17:29, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

OmiseGO

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Non-notable cryptocurrency company. Џ 21:25, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. North America1000 21:50, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Finance-related deletion discussions. North America1000 21:50, 29 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment Not sure; it got RS coverage at the time, for that "first ICO unicorn" title ... is there a better place for this content? - David Gerard (talk) 11:30, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The source "The first ICO unicorns are here" also notes Qtum which got deleted at AfD. Maybe make the article focus on the parent company, Omise? But it's creation protected. Џ 21:05, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The parent company got deleted for repeated spammy recreations - David Gerard (talk) 23:57, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.  The article notes: "But among the dozens of other prominent blockchain projects — most of which are only quasi-operational — one is remarkable both for its developers’ location and the audacity of its ideas. It’s called OmiseGO, often shortened to OMG. ... The founders of OmiseGO are Jun Hasegawa, a Japanese former professional skateboarder turned tech entrepreneur, and Ezra “Don” Harinsut, a financial technology professional from Thailand.  They are backed by a team of roughly 35 people — “which, I’m proud to say, includes a lot of badass girls,” Vansa says — hailing from Thailand, Japan, Poland, Australia, Singapore and elsewhere. The team has received a “startup of the year” award from Thailand’s government.  But OmiseGO is perhaps best known in the crypto-tech scene because the great wunderkind of blockchain is one of the startup’s advisors. His name is Vitalik Buterin, a 24-year-old Russian-born programmer, and he is the mastermind behind Ethereum."  The book notes: "OmiseGo ICO Finished before it even started! While we're still getting our heads around ICOs that finish in 30 seconds, the OmiseGo ICO managed to finish before the token sale even started. Launched by an established Asia based payments provider, Omise – which boasts of being the first to back the Ethereum Foundation's Devgrants program – the ICO started with a token pre-sale on Bitcoin Suisse, a token investors pool of sorts that requires AML/KYC." The book further notes: "8.7.5 OmiseGo OmiseGo is another interesting project that specialises in financial inclusion through payments (see Figures 8.21 and 8.22). With Vitalik Buterin and Thomas Greco from the Ethereum Foundation acting as advisors and team members, the project was a popular ICO with investors. One of the authors acts as a financial inclusion advisor and is an investor in the company."  The article notes: "OmiseGo, a virtual currency that currently operates using the Ethereum blockchain, developed by Russia’s Vitalik Buterin, features greater scalability and high transaction speeds. Ethereum was created with the ultimate goal of making crypto-money as legitimate as fiat currency. The Southeast Asian payment platform saw impressive development strides during the Q4 2017 bull market, pushing the value of the OmiseGo token, or OMG, to over $26. Omise, the parent company behind Omisego, has prioritized the implementation of merchant solutions and even made a leap in the direction of the Southeast Asian market. For instance, in 2017, Omise concluded a deal with McDonald’s Thailand, which now uses the platform as the only payment gateway provider for both the Thai McDonald’s website and the McDelivery Thailand app."  The article notes: "Omise, a fintech startup based in Thailand, has closed $25 million in new financing via a token sale, more commonly know as ICO, that closed today. In doing so, it become the most established tech company to date to take this financing route. The company, which has raised over $20 million to date from traditional VC investors, held the token sale to raise capital to develop a decentralized payment platform — Omise Go — that it hopes will disrupt the current banking system. The idea is to enable any Omise Go user to share funds through the network without the need for a bank account and without incurring fees or incurring cross-border costs. Beyond peer-to-peer payments, the company plans to sign up retail partners to extend its utility into purchases, and open the system up to other payment players, too. Omise Go remains under development, however, and it isn’t expected to launch fully until late next year although initial services and products will go live from Q4 2017. When it does launch, it will be powered by OMG, the Omise Go cryptocurrency which is based on ERC20 token standard and was sold in this ICO. OMG token holders will be given the opportunity to make money helping to run the network. That’s much like a software license in traditional thinking, and it mirrors a wider move by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, who is working on ‘Casper’ proof-of-stake functionality for the cryptocurrency."  The article notes: "Omise, a Bangkok-based payment enabler much like Stripe, has raised a $17.5 million Series B round to expand its reach across Southeast Asia. The company proves a payment gateway system that allows any retailer take credit card payments online. That’s long been a problem in Southeast Asia, which is compromised of six major countries, each of which requires a different payment solution — Omise is trying to offer a one-stop shop. Right now, its service is available in Thailand and Japan (the birthplace of CEO Jun Hasegawa), but there are plans to expand to Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, where it has carried out closed testing, in the coming months. Beyond that, Omise is looking at reaching Vietnam, the Philippines, and Mekong countries like Burma, Laos and Cambodia at a later date. This new round, which is one of the largest for a fintech company in Southeast Asia to date, was led by Japan-based SBI Investment, with participation from Sinar Mas Digital Ventures (SMDV) in Indonesia, Thailand’s Ascend Money (affiliated with mobile operator True), and existing backer Golden Gate Ventures. Omise has now raised over $25 million, including a $2.6 million Series A in May 2015 and undisclosed round from Golden Gate Ventures last October, right after the Singapore-based VC firm announced a new $50 million fund." <li> The article notes: "OmiseGo Pte, a blockchain-based subsidiary of Omise Pte Ltd, will decentralise its exchange and payment infrastructure to enable cross-platform payments with a new e-wallet software development kit. ... In late July, OmiseGo successfully raised US$25 million (833 million baht) through an initial coin offering (ICO), which is a type of kick-starter crowdfunding campaign increasingly being used by blockchain teams to fund the development and scaling of decentralised projects. ... OmiseGo is a public blockchain e-payment platform designed to enable decentralised real-time peer-to-peer value exchanges and payment services across currencies and asset types, as well as across national borders and corporate ledgers." The article also contains quotes from people affiliated with the company.</li> <li> The article notes: "On the consumer side, practical applications are now available in Thailand from OmiseGo, which uses public ethereum-based technology that can be linked to a traditional digital wallet. 'We see the pain point of the existing mobile wallet platform, which has not taken off, and the use of e-wallet services has been limited due to its closed platform,' said Ezra Don Harinsut, chief operating officer and co-founder of Omise, a Southeast Asian payment gateway and the parent of OmiseGo. Holders of OmiseGo tokens are granted the right to participate in validating the transactions that go through the OmiseGo network, earning validation fees in the process. According to CoinMarketCap, its market capitalisation currently stands around copy billion. McDonald's Thailand has partnered with Omise to manage its payment gateway."</li> <li> The article notes: "OMG tokens represent the right to help facilitate the decentralized payments system Omise is building. “They are like buying a bit of code that lets the buyers participate in running the network,” the spokesperson said. “We don’t want to be the ones who own the infrastructure. We prefer that it remains open for the benefit of everyone.” The proof-of-stake can be revoked if the user is dishonest because Omise’s goal is to create a system for processing financial transactions without a centralized control, an influential elite or a corporate monopoly, aka a bank or credit card company. Omise already has raised more than $20.4 million since the digital payment service was founded in 2013 and now claims to serve 8,000 merchants in Japan, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. Its executives are blockchain veterans devoted to the ideological vision of financial neutrality espoused by bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto. Wendell Davis, Omise’s product development lead, was once part of the original team that invented Ethereum. Just as Ethereum's network had far-reaching consequences beyond its cryptocurrency, ether, OmiseGO aims to impact users beyond the company's clients. “There’s no restrictions on who can join the network. People can do things on the network that have nothing to do with Omise payments,” the spokesperson said."</li> </ol>There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow OmiseGO to pass Notability, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Cunard (talk) 10:22, 1 January 2019 (UTC) </li></ul>
 * Delete All the references above the exact type of generic financial coverage that is prohibited by WP:NCORP and asserts WP:ORGIND, and WP:CORPDEPTH. There is no coverage outside startup news, which is expressely non notable sources. It is exactly that type of information that 100's of other crpyto currencies are reporting, and is entirely generic. There is no real secondary coverage.   scope_creep Talk  15:06, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The articles do not contain "exactly that type of information that 100's of other crpyto currencies are reporting, and is entirely generic". Here is non-generic information from the sources that is specifically about Omise and OmiseGo:<ol><li>"OmiseGo, a virtual currency that currently operates using the Ethereum blockchain, developed by Russia’s Vitalik Buterin, features greater scalability and high transaction speeds."</li><li>"But OmiseGO is perhaps best known in the crypto-tech scene because the great wunderkind of blockchain is one of the startup’s advisors. His name is Vitalik Buterin, a 24-year-old Russian-born programmer, and he is the mastermind behind Ethereum."</li><li>"For instance, in 2017, Omise concluded a deal with McDonald’s Thailand, which now uses the platform as the only payment gateway provider for both the Thai McDonald’s website and the McDelivery Thailand app."</li><li>"Omise, a Bangkok-based payment enabler much like Stripe, has raised a $17.5 million Series B round to expand its reach across Southeast Asia. ... This new round, which is one of the largest for a fintech company in Southeast Asia to date, was led by Japan-based SBI Investment"</li><li>"The founders of OmiseGO are Jun Hasegawa, a Japanese former professional skateboarder turned tech entrepreneur, and Ezra “Don” Harinsut, a financial technology professional from Thailand. ... The team has received a 'startup of the year' award from Thailand's government."</li></ol> OmiseGO was covered in the 2018 book Inclusive FinTech: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and ICO. Cunard (talk) 20:10, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You're functionally quoting the same stuff over again. Literally the text you quote from Inclusive Fintech is generic passing coverage with no depth. You appear to be able to find search-engine text matches, but I must question your evaluation of what you find there - David Gerard (talk) 21:20, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I do not consider a subsection of a book to be "generic passing coverage with no depth". I am quoting specific sentences to show why the comment that the coverage "is entirely generic" is incorrect. There is plenty of specific information about why sources think OmiseGO stands out. Cunard (talk) 22:18, 1 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep per sources provided by Cunard passes our GN guidlines therefore an article is warranted. <b style="color: DarkSlateGray;">Valoem</b> <b style="color: blue;">talk</b> <b style="color: Green;">contrib</b> 23:35, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment They may pass GN guidelines, but they fail NCORP (the relevant guidelines for organizations) guidelines. <b style="font-family: Courier; color: darkgreen;"> HighKing</b>++ 21:10, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Once again, posts a wall of text containing too many references. I thought he had agreed to limit his style to 3 at a time. Cunard also appears to ignore WP:NCORP guidelines and instead quotes GNG's sufficient coverage in reliable sources while ignoring the clarifications provided by NCORP. This behaviour is extremely disruptive to the AfD process, especially considering that most of the time, Cunard selectively omits the parts of references that show why the references fail the criteria for establishing notability.
 * This pri.org reference fails WP:ORGIND. Cunard's extract omits any mention of the interview. Fail.
 * The book "Inclusive FinTech" mentions the company in passing and fails WP:CORPDEPTH. Fail.
 * This Sputnik News reference has no attributed author/journalist, comments on the ICO of their token, reads like an advertisement and has no in-depth information on the company failing WP:CORPDEPTH. Fail.
 * Cunard's extract from the TechCrunch reference crucially omits the following sentence: Omise’s core business is enabling online payments, much like Stripe, in Thailand, Japan and Indonesia, but it became interested in the blockchain a few years ago, CEO Jun Hasegawa told TechCrunch in an interview as well as quotations from Hasegawa which confirms the reference is based on an interview, is not intellectually independent and fails WP:ORGIND. Fail.
 * This Bangkok Post reference is based on an interview with a founder (no mention of that in Cunard's extract) and fails WP:ORGIND as it is not intellectually independent. Fail.
 * This next Bangkok Post reference fails WP:CORPDEPTH and WP:SIGCOV as it has no in-depth information on the company and relies on quotations from a company officer. Fail.
 * This IBTimes reference fails WP:ORGIND as it relies on quotations/interview with company officers. Fail.
 * As per NCORP, Independent content, in order to count towards establishing notability, must include original and independent opinion, analysis, investigation, and fact checking that are clearly attributable to a source unaffiliated to the subject  (My emphasis). Also, If source's independence is of any doubt, it is better to exercise caution and exclude it from determining quality sources for the purposes of establishing notability. None of the sources provided by Cunard above include any original/independent opinion/analysis/investigation/etc that are clearly attributable to a source unaffiliated to the subject. Extracting parts of articles which overall rely extensively on company sources does not meet the standard required. <b style="font-family: Courier; color: darkgreen;"> HighKing</b>++ 21:10, 4 January 2019 (UTC)


 * This is unfortunately typical. Cunard is good at running searches, but is not good at assessing value of the sources thus found - David Gerard (talk) 00:42, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete: does not meet WP:NCORP; sourcing offered is in passing, routine notices and / or WP:SPIP. As an aside, the article does not even hide its advertorial intent; it opens with: "OmiseGO is a company hoping to build an open..." (emphasis mine). This is all about the company's goals and aspirations, not an encyclopedia entry. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:35, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

<ul><li>Comment: Here are my responses to HighKing's responses about the sources I provided:<ul> <li>This pri.org reference fails WP:ORGIND. Cunard's extract omits any mention of the interview. Fail. – the quotation I provided does include a quotation from Vansa Chatikavanij, OmiseGO's managing director. This article from Public Radio International, an American public radio organization, is not merely an interview. It includes independent analysis from Patrick Winn. Winn notes, "Now for some caveats, some of which are substantial." The article includes a quotation from Vansa Chatikavanij, OmiseGo's managing director, about what she thinks the company's challenges are. But it also includes independent analysis from an expert unaffiliated with the company: "In the blockchain world, confidence in OmiseGO’s mission is not universal. Asked to evaluate its chances of success, Cornell Tech professor and crypto-finance expert Ari Juels says their goals are “extremely ambitious and technically challenging. And they don’t appear to have a substantial research team or partnership.” “So,” he says, “it’s unclear how they’ll pull it off.”" The professor is skeptical of OmiseGo's chances of success. The independent analysis from journalist Patrick Winn and Cornell Tech professor Ari Juels clearly make this an independent source.</li> <li>The book "Inclusive FinTech" mentions the company in passing and fails WP:CORPDEPTH. Fail. – the book discusses Omise's ICO and provides detailed background about OmiseGo.</li> <li>This Sputnik News reference has no attributed author/journalist, comments on the ICO of their token, reads like an advertisement and has no in-depth information on the company failing WP:CORPDEPTH. Fail. – many new agencies including Sputnik News and Agence France-Presse do not include author bylines. The article contains background information about the company and what it is doing.</li> <li>Cunard's extract from the TechCrunch reference crucially omits the following sentence: Omise’s core business is enabling online payments, much like Stripe, in Thailand, Japan and Indonesia, but it became interested in the blockchain a few years ago, CEO Jun Hasegawa told TechCrunch in an interview as well as quotations from Hasegawa which confirms the reference is based on an interview, is not intellectually independent and fails WP:ORGIND. Fail. – it is good journalistic practice to interview the subject of an article. That is why the article contains quotations from Omise CEO Jun Hasegawa. That the article contains quotations from Jun Hasegawa does not make the article non-independent. The article contains independent analysis from TechCrunch journalist Jon Russell: "The OMG token sale is notable for a number of reasons. Omise is one of the more established tech companies to take the ICO route, which to date has been favored by young ventures that are typically in the very early stages of building out ambitious and unproven product visions. It is also the first real example of a controlled ICO. Omise capped its token sale at $25 million, eschewing the ‘gold rush’ mentality which has seen other companies raise tens of millions of U.S. dollars more as ICOs have gained a reputation for giving backers huge financial gains quickly. Over the past month or so alone, browser startup Brave raised $35 million in under a minute, little-known fintech firm TenX raised $80 million, an ICO for ICO-enabler Bancor drew $150 million while highly controversial project EOS claimed a record after raising over $185 million in the first week of a year-long ICO campaign. In contrast, the OMG ICO is capped. Omise initially targeted less than $20 million, but it later increased its ICO target to $25 million due to high demand. The original plan to raise a pre-sale figure of $4 million in OMG coin — a move to lock in traditional investors keen to take part in the token sale — was deemed unfeasible when Omise blew past that figure." Jon Russell compared Omise's ICO to ICOs by "browser startup Brave", "little-known fintech firm TenX", "ICO-enabler Bancor", and "highly controversial project EOS". Russell concluded that Omise is "the first real example of a controlled ICO" where the ICO is capped. The journalist concludes the article with this paragraph: "It’s an interesting approach that comes at a time when — following the EOS campaign — many are beginning to believe ICOs are a money grab for companies and the investors who buy into them. The truth is that token sales clearly have broad potential, but we are still in the very early days of realizing exactly what that might be. Increased responsibility and control around ICOs from other companies may help rein in some of the skepticism and allow the tech community to embrace the undoubted potential of this model. It would be a shame to let the bad apples ruin the barrel." He calls Omise's controlled ICO "an interesting approach" and puts it in the broader context of a time when "many are beginning to believe ICOs are a money grab for companies and the investors who buy into them" because of EOS' very controversial ICO.</li> <li>This Bangkok Post reference is based on an interview with a founder (no mention of that in Cunard's extract) and fails WP:ORGIND as it is not intellectually independent. Fail. – that the article contains quotations from the founder does not make the article non-independent. There is independent analysis about how OmiseGo works. Bangkok Post journalist Suchit Leesa-Nguansuk notes: "OmiseGo is a public blockchain e-payment platform designed to enable decentralised real-time peer-to-peer value exchanges and payment services across currencies and asset types, as well as across national borders and corporate ledgers. Users, for example, will be able to take airline mileage points and convert them into 'cash' to pay for groceries anywhere around the world."</li> <li>https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/1380891/bonanza-or-bubble- This next Bangkok Post reference] fails WP:CORPDEPTH and WP:SIGCOV as it has no in-depth information on the company and relies on quotations from a company officer. Fail. – I included this article because it says "McDonald's Thailand has partnered with Omise to manage its payment gateway". That the Thailand operations of blue chip company McDonald's are relying on Omise to manage its payment gateway contributes to its notability.</li> </ul> Regarding "I thought he had agreed to limit his style to 3 at a time", I made no such agreement. Please provide a diff for this assertion or withdraw it. I include all sources I have found since different editors consider different sources acceptable in establishing notability. Cunard (talk) 04:56, 5 January 2019 (UTC) </li></ul>
 * I rest my case. Once you apply the WP:ORGIND guideline Independent content, in order to count towards establishing notability, must include original and independent opinion, analysis, investigation, and fact checking that are clearly attributable to a source unaffiliated to the subject there's hardly anything left and certainly no in-depth information on the company. I can see various opinions on the ICO but the token is not the topic, the company is. <b style="font-family: Courier; color: darkgreen;"> HighKing</b>++ 15:15, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment – No opinion at this time about this topic, but in general, the probability of topics that are actually notable being deleted would significantly increase if users were limited to posting only three sources at AfD discussions. Such a policy would entirely bias the AfD process, muzzling editors from presenting all valid references to qualify notability. This would skew the AfD process to favor deletion from the start, goes against the grain of WP:NEXIST, and would discourage fair assessment of notability and functional discussion. North America1000 05:55, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I've no problem with someone posting 20 or 30 links if they like, just not to include long passages of selected extracts. Even a short pointer such as "from page 2" or "para 5 page 6" would be fine. But Cunard's walls of text is disruptive and often results in having several pages of text to scroll through. Completely unnecessary - editors are quite capable of reading the references themselves. And on a similar topic, not so long ago towards the beginning of 2018, I used to post "walls of text" analysing each reference and stating reasons why it passed or failed the criteria for establishing notability. I was asked to stop and I did, out of courtesy, when it was pointed out that it was unnecessary and disruptive and offputting to other editors. But it also seems that I and a handful of other editors are in the minority on this topic so I guess there's no consensus to request Cunard to change this behaviour. <b style="font-family: Courier; color: darkgreen;"> HighKing</b>++ 15:10, 5 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment : I strongly support citing as many finds as practically possible in AfD discussions since this is a critical Wikipedia process. Be that as it may, I do not think it's necessary to cite from these sources as extensively as Cunard does because it's a practice that if imitated and established would lead to extremely unwieldy project texts and would frighten away potential participants. So, the extent of sources should stay, IMVHO, but the extended quotes trimmed. A shave; not a brazilian! Take care, all. -The Gnome (talk) 15:24, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, it comes across as filibustering. And the cites keep failing to be very good? Making up for lack of substance with a sheer flood of words - David Gerard (talk) 17:21, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. Despite the references cited by Cunard above (in typically thorough fashion), the subject is still swimming in the seas of the unborn. The text is full of words such as "hoping to build," "stated objective," "the plan was," and finally "not yet operational." As clear a case of WP:TOOSOON as there can be. -The Gnome (talk) 15:24, 5 January 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.