Blockchain Projects: COTI Explained. What Is It?| FXMAG.COM

TL;DR

COTI is a decentralized payment solution that aims to address the blockchain scalability issue. Unlike traditional blockchains, COTI doesn’t rely on Proof of Work (PoW) or Proof of Stake (PoS) to validate transactions. It adopts a unique consensus algorithm called Proof of Trust (PoT), which combines directed acyclic graph (DAG) data structure with PoW. PoT can lower transaction costs and increase throughput to up to 100,000 TPS.

Its native token COTI is a cryptocurrency that operates on three different mainnets. COTI is used for paying transaction fees and can be staked to earn rewards in the Treasury. You can also use COTI and other cryptocurrencies to pay for goods and services with the COTI Visa debit card.

Introduction

COTI is a decentralized payment solution that facilitates fast and secure transactions with low fees. It aims to revolutionize traditional finance by eliminating the intermediaries and empowering organizations to build their own payment solutions and digital currencies or stablecoins.

What is COTI?

COTI stands for “Currency of the Internet”. Designed by Samuel Falkon in 2016, it was built to support both fiat currency and cryptocurrency for everyday transactions. COTI is the native cryptocurrency of the COTI ecosystem.

How does COTI work?

Scalability has been a challenge for major blockchains, such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). They process transactions using blocks, which are added periodically to a growing chain of blocks. However, there’s a waiting period for the blocks to be accepted, which could take a long time to confirm the transactions. For example, Bitcoin can only handle around 20 transactions per second, compared to Visa’s 65,000 TPS.

The COTI network is built on Trustchain, a layer-1 blockchain protocol with a directed acyclic graph (DAG) data structure. It can significantly lower transaction costs and increase throughput to up to 100,000 transactions per second (TPS).

Proof of Trust (PoT)

To address scalability issues, COTI combines Trustchain, a DAG-based data structure, and Proof of Work (PoW) to create the Proof of Trust consensus mechanism.

The COTI DAG is called “the Cluster”, a distributed ledger for recording transactions on the network. Instead of gathering transactions into blocks, transactions are placed in sequence, one after the other. For a new transaction to be acknowledged, the validating nodes must link it to two prior transactions.

But which transactions should they link? It depends on their Trust Score. In the PoT system, validators are selected based on their trustworthiness. Each user and node on the Cluster are rated according to their Trust Scores, calculated by their historical behavior and payment statistics. The higher the Trust Score, the quicker their transactions can be processed and the lower the fees. When a user initiates a transaction on COTI, the Source Selection Algorithm will randomly assign two validating nodes with similar Trust Scores. As a result, transactions from trusted users will be confirmed much faster. As transactions with different Trust Scores will be processed in parallel, it can achieve scalability and network security.

In COTI, PoW isn’t adopted in the way we’re accustomed to. It doesn’t rely on mining to achieve trust. PoW is only used to protect COTI from spamming attempts and incentivize network participants. Completing PoW tasks allow validators to attach their transactions to the Cluster, but it doesn’t guarantee that they can do so. It all depends on their Trust Scores, which are also used for setting the PoW levels that can indirectly affect transaction fee levels. With no mining required, COTI can operate with very low transaction fees.

A MultiDAG ecosystem

The COTI MultiDAG ecosystem is similar to that of Ethereum. There are several independent DAGs on the network with different purposes. They each maintain fully customized tokens and applications, but all run simultaneously on the same infrastructure to make the whole network more efficient.

Smart contracts on the COTI DAG are on-chain and decentralized, and the fees for executing them are more affordable than the gas fees on Ethereum. They also allow merchants to create high-performance digital currencies and stablecoins on Trustchain. Users can create their own fiat-collateralized, crypto-collateralized, or even non-collateralized stablecoins with the MultiDAG. For example, COTI is the official issuer of Cardano (ADA)’s stablecoin Djed and the payment system ADA Pay.

COTI Pay

COTI Pay is a decentralized payment network that can process both crypto and fiat payments. Users can make nearly instant payments to friends and merchants via COTI Pay wallets, all with very low transaction fees. In addition, COTI Pay supports offline payment with crypto-friendly bank accounts and physical Visa debit cards. They can store fiat currency balances and facilitate in-store payments without having to pay currency exchange fees to third-party service providers.

Similar to other online payment systems like PayPal, the COTI Universal Payment System (UPS) offers buyers-seller protections with an arbitration system. This dispute resolution mechanism works with the Trust Score algorithm to safeguard against user errors and fraud and maintain the payment system’s security.

The COTI Pay network has its currency exchange (COTI-X) and a stablecoin (COTI Dime). COTI-X functions as a foundational layer for COTI Pay’s applications and services. It’s an internal liquidity pool that powers cross-currency payments, meaning that the COTI network can process instant on-chain settlements on any crypto. This is a competitive advantage for merchants planning to accept cryptocurrencies as payment methods. COTI-X helps the network process millions of dollars in transactions every month. Not only does it speed up the confirmation time for transactions, it also protects merchants from market volatility.

What is the COTI token?

COTI coin is the native token of the COTI ecosystem. It is a DAG-based cryptocurrency with a total supply of 2 billion. COTI doesn’t require PoW mining to secure the network. COTI operates on three different mainnets: Trustchain, Ethereum, and BNB Chain.

Trustchain: COTI’s native mainnet;
Ethereum: COTI also exists as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum network. It’s traded on some crypto exchanges and used in DeFi DApps ;
BNB Beacon Chain (formerly Binance Chain): a BEP-2 version of COTI.

COTI token holders can use the COTI Bridge to interoperate between the different networks (mainnets). Apart from paying for services within the ecosystem, COTI can be deposited into the COTI Treasury for DeFi staking. The Treasury will then allocate COTI as incentives for arbitrators and node operators within COTI Pay.

How to buy COTI on Binance?

You can buy COTI on cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance.

1. Log in to your Binance account and go to [Trade]. Select either the classic or advanced trading mode.

2. Click on [BTC/USDT] on the top left and search for “COTI”. It will display all the available trading pairs, such as COTI/BUSD.

3. Go to the [Spot] box on the right and enter the amount of COTI to buy. You can use different order types, such as a Market order. Click [Buy COTI] and the tokens will be credited to your Spot Wallet.

Closing thoughts

As the online payment industry develops, there will be an increased demand for a highly scalable platform, for both crypto and fiat transactions. According to the team, COTI is looking to expand partnerships with more projects and merchants and is expected to bring more use cases to the platform in the near future.