You may have learned that “Omise” means store in Japanese, but have you ever wondered where the logo comes from and why the team named their blockchain project OmiseGO?

Part 1 — An Homage

Kan’ei Tsuho Coin

Starting off with the Omise logo we find it is a homage to the Kan’ei Tsuho coins. In Japanese “go en” (five yen) is a homophone to “go-en” which means “good relationship”.

According to Jun, this is appropriate as “OmiseGO is our offering of true financial inclusion, a genuine good relationship with all people who use the wallet, especially unbanked people.”

Part 2 — The Strategy

If you are not familiar with it, the name of this game above is GO. Though its rules are simple, many describe it as being more complex than chess due to the number of possible moves. The purpose of this game is to surround a largest territory of the board.

Omise identified spaces in the e-payment ecosystem that are ready for disruption and is using unconventional “win-win” techniques to surround it:

OmiseGO is a public and permission-less exchange and settlement platform that will not only allow interoperability between currencies but also digital wallets. Their SDK wallet is going to be white label and will serve both e-payment companies and merchants. Omise offers AI facial recognition, chatbots, and one-click security operating under the highest level of security in the industry. Lastly, it will soon announce cash in/out touch points as to not leave behind the unbanked. For these reasons, it’s customers include individuals, merchants, e-wallet providers, and banks — essentially everyone involved in the e-payment space.

So there you GO.