Oyo Rooms Says It’s Launching Its Own Cryptocurrency Called Oyo Smart Coin

OfficeChai Team

Nothing in the crypto world surprises people any more, but this is getting people in India to sit up and take notice — Oyo Rooms has said that it’s launching its own cryptocurrency called Oyo Smart Coin.

“The news you all have been waiting for, announcing the token sale of #OSC, OYO SMART Coin. A cryptocurrency that will transform the travel and hospitality industry and mark the beginning of the blockchain revolution in India,” Oyo declared on Twitter today. “OYOSMARTCoin will benefit hotel partners, consumers & the entire ecosystem at large. Using OSC, consumers will be able to transact on the OYO platform with reduced prices and travel partners will be able to directly market & offer benefits to them,” it added. 

Oyo has a dedicated page on its site for Oyo Smart Coin, and it features the distant stars and sleek geometric lines that are so popular with ICO launches, all while declaring how Oyo Smart Coin will revolutionize the hospitality industry. Oyo Smart Coin also has a whitepaper out, but it offers scant details on what the coin is supposed to do. The first page and a half of the 3-page whitepaper is essentially a boilerplate disclaimer. The rest of the whitepaper is high on jargon, and talks about how Oyo Smart Coin will “enable a decentralized management of the OYO ecosystem.” Oyo Smart coin will supposedly enable Oyo’s hotel “auditors” to to conduct audits of hotels in their locality, building perhaps on some distributed notion of trust. Oyo Smart Coin will also be apparently used by vendors while making purchases for hotel, and consumers will also be able to pay for hotel rooms through the cryptocurrency.

But most crucially, Oyo says Oyo Smart Coin opens for pre-registration at 5 pm on 30th March. Call us skeptical, but that’s suspiciously close to April Fool’s day, and Oyo Smart Coin could be an elaborate prank that’s being released in time for catch people off guard on 1st April. Oyo’s whitepaper is silent on most technical details, and Oyo Smart Coin’s site seems a little much much of a parody of a real ICO to be actually real.

But it’s hard to tell in the crypto world these days — Dogecoin, which had been created as a joke in honor of the Doge meme, had ended up with a market cap of $2 billion. There’s no telling how Oyo Smart Coin will fare, but until 30th March, crypto enthusists get a chance to get to breathlessly discuss and analyze yet another crytocurrency that’s hitting the markets.