A Q&A session with one of COTI’s advisors Steven Heilbron on why he believes that COTI will indeed become the Currency of the Internet

COTI recently had the opportunity to speak with Steven Heilbron, a member of COTI’s board of advisors and former CEO of Investec Bank in London. For a fine grain view into his early involvement in the project all the way through to his outlook on digital currencies and their traditional counterparts, read on.

https://youtu.be/w-s_Heml60I

1. Please give us a bit of a background about yourself..

I have been in the financial services industry for 25 years and previously served as the global head of private banking and Joint CEO of Investec Bank in London. Today, I am the Joint CEO of Cash Connect, an automated cash handling, payments and credit business which I acquired as part of a consortium in 2013.

2. When did you first become involved in the COTI project, and what drew you to it?

David Assaraf approached me last year with a vision for the new standard in digital currencies. I immediately subscribed to COTI’s mission of bringing the current standards of the financial services industry into the digital sphere. The majority of other digital currencies which I had come across failed to understand the importance of maintaining high regulatory standards.

I was drawn to the project for two things: COTI’s team of highly experienced financial services professionals who understand this nuance and the innovative technology which powers the Trustchain and COTI ecosystem. I believe that the first use case of COTI for digital payments shows immense potential, but other applications for the technology in the remittance and insurance industry are equally significant.


3. What do you see as disadvantages in today’s payment systems like Visa and Mastercard?

Worldwide authenticators like Visa and Mastercard have dominated the payments industry for several decades. Their primary value proposition of intermediating trust between consumers and merchants and issuing banks and acquiring banks has consolidated this position.

The blockchain — with its innate ability to decentralize trust to network participants through a consensus mechanism supported by a proof of work — challenges this status quo, making the payments space ripe for unprecedented disruption.

Existing hurdles including accessibility to consumers and merchants, high transaction costs, delayed settlement periods, low transaction approval rates, particularly in cross border exchanges, and cumbersome multi-currency support are all up for a challenge with these new technologies.

4. Why have traditional payment systems like Visa and Mastercard not yet been disrupted?

They offer merchants and consumers speed and consistency in processing transactions, while providing mechanisms to protect all parties from improper and fraudulent use.

A disruptive technology will need to produce an ecosystem that is compliant with regulation, highly scalable, trust-based and which includes buyer-seller protections.

In the past few years, much hype has surrounded cryptocurrencies, and while they obviously show extreme potential, existing cryptocurrencies fail to deliver on all of these elements needed to dislodge the traditional payment incumbents.


5. What gives COTI an edge over other digital payment networks?

✓ Simple, transparent, instant and scalable, while building in mechanisms to protect
 both buyers and sellers.

✓ Real value added to both merchants and consumers

✓ Fully compliant and embracing of current financial regulations.

✓ Accessibly and ease of use for both consumers and merchants

6. In your view, what will need to occur for COTI to experience mass adoption and be accepted on a global scale?

✓ An emphasis on real value added to merchants and consumers

✓ Network effect achieved with broad merchant adoption

✓ COTI functionality online and offline

✓ Full regulatory compliance

7. What excites you about COTI’s long term vision?

COTI’s vision is to exchange value as easily and simply as the internet exchanges information. There are multiple use cases and industries which can be disrupted by a trust-based system. International remittances and insurance are ripe for change.

The same goes for the two billion people around the world who remain unbanked and excluded from the financial services industry. A lack of trust with these consumers remains the biggest barrier to entry. COTI’s Trustchain has the ability to transcend this problem and democratise financial services accessibility.

8. What do you think a tech company like COTI can offer to users in payments that they wouldn’t get from traditional payment services?

✓ Decentralized governance and assurance of no overreach of power

✓ Zero-to-low fees

✓ High cross-border reliability, irrespective of industry or jurisdiction

✓ Efficient and decentralized buyer-seller protections

✓ Short settlement periods, alleviating cash flow challenges

✓ More reliable transaction approval rates with a reduction of false positives

9. Does the DAG structure have advantages beyond improving payment systems? Is that part of COTI’s vision?

COTI is fit for many use cases beyond the payments industry. There are over 14 verticals that can benefit from COTI’s Trustchain protocol. International remittances, micropayments and nanopayments, insurance and even digital advertising are among additional industries identified for future applications.

10. What are your thoughts on the team behind COTI?

They are highly experienced and skilled across a range of sectors from banking and payments processing to blockchain, e-commerce, data science and AI. There are also a number of accomplished PhDs and industry veterans on the team, such as COTI’s CTO, Dr. Nir Haloani, who has authored over 13 patents to date.

11. How does COTI ensure a trusted ecosystem?

To provide a community-based decentralized payment system, it will be necessary to create trust among community members by incentivizing trustworthy ecosystem participants with lower fees and higher transaction confirmations.

COTI takes a novel approach to building trust between transacting parties through its Trust Score mechanism. The Trust Score servers analyze user data, user behavior, and network payment statistics to calculate a Trust Score for each COTI network participant. The Trust Score as a metric helps to rate participants according to their trustworthiness and contribution to the COTI network.

12. How much involvement does COTI have during transactions between users? How does COTI resolve disputes?

COTI is decentralized and thus has no direct involvement in each transaction. While the Trust Score adds a layer of trust to all COTI network transactions and imposes disincentives on behavior that is dishonest or unfair, the Mediation System provides an additional mechanism that facilitates dispute resolution in an effective and cost-efficient manner.

Mediators in the network work independently to validate information pertaining to transaction disputes and then cast votes on a mediated outcome. Mediators receive caseloads and cast their votes using a specialized mediator application. They are not able to communicate with one another and are unaware of how many other mediators are involved in resolving a dispute. After mediators’ votes have been cast, they are assessed using a voting matrix that determines consensus automatically. Once a mediated outcome has been arbitrated by a quorum of mediators, the system compensates the winning party and returns that party’s balance to its rightful state.

                                                                 
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COTI’s sale is moving to the next stage! With a higher cap per person! maximum contribution amount will be changed From 1.5 ETH to 50 ETH / 4 BTC per contribution. Please make sure to only send your contributions via the COTI website. Beware of scams that ask you to send funds through Telegram and email. COTI will never ask you to send contributions through any medium other than the official COTI website https://coti.io



📌COMMUNITY PRE-SALE SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED!

Thanks to all participants
We are proud of our community

✔️Funds contributed: $3,001,028 In 27 hours!

✔️Over 77% contributors out of 4,137 whitelisted members

✔️52% of them contributed the maximum amount of 1.5 ETH

You will be able to contribute tomorrow
Maximum contribution: 1.5 ETH (or 0.12 BTC) within the first 24 hours; 50 ETH / 4 BTC after 24 hours



Total token sale hard cap: $30M / Community pre-sale cap: $3M


COTI’s community pre-sale is now LIVE! https://coti.io/  Ask us questions on the telegram group https://t.me/COTInetwork

Thank you to all our community members who completed the whitelist verification process. From 8,525 total registrations, almost half have been whitelisted to date.

As COTI has been established to be the payments network of the future, our user verification process was quite vigorous. The final number of participants in the limited community pre-sale reached 4,137 members who will have the opportunity to be involved in the early stages of COTI and to secure the best rates on COTI tokens.

As per the high demand on the private sale, the community pre-sale was capped at $3,000,000. Because we'd like to extend an equal participation opportunity for all our community members, we have set a maximum contribution cap of 1.5 ETH per person for the first 24 hours of the community pre-sale. Afterward, second round contributions will be open with a maximum individual contribution cap of 50 ETH or the equivalent in BTC.

Contributions will close as soon as we reach the cap, so don't miss your chance! Visit COTI's website https://presale.coti.io/

Save the date! COTI’s community pre-sale will kick off  this week, on June 4–5, 2018 at 9 AM (UTC).

The community pre-sale cap is limited and is on a first come, first served basis.

📌Important information regarding the pre-sale

✔️Contribution method: ETH/BTC

✔️Minimum contribution: 0.1 ETH / 0.01 BTC

✔️Maximum contribution: 1.5 ETH (or equivalent BTC) within the first 24 hours; 50 ETH / 5 BTC after 24 hours

So why should you participate in COTI's community pre-sale?

✔️It might be our only public token sale!

Up to a 25% discount on the token price

✔️COTI's vision is to empower global merchants and consumers to freely exchange value as simply as information is exchanged on the Internet

✔️COTI is the fastest and most user-friendly network built for payments.

One of COTI’s goals is to disrupt the two trillion dollar payments space

Ecosystem of a Coin, Exchange, Wallet and a Debit card

✔️Signed up over 3,000 global merchants and over 50,000 users to its crypto payments service

✔️Buyer seller protection via decentralized meditation system

Here is COTI’s-step by-step guide to participating in the community pre-sale! Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/-ir59ZUYw1M

In the world of digital currencies there are countless options to choose from, whether you’re looking at newcomers or established currencies. It goes without saying, that not all are created equal, which is why we’re breaking down the differences for you. Today, it’s all about how Nano fares against COTI, so let’s dive in.

Both COTI and Nano utilize DAG-based consensus mechanisms to verify transactions within their respective networks. COTI has developed the TrustchainTM, a unique base protocol which is highly scalable, efficient and centered around trust. The protocol consists of FinTech application layers resting on a blockless distributed ledger, which utilizes a directed acyclic graph (DAG) data structure. At its core are a trust-based consensus mechanism and Mediation System ensuring trust is maintained within the network.

Nano’s DAG is known as the Blocklattice, which is also scalable, while its consensus mechanism is based on a delegated proof-of-stake (dPOS) model. Currently, the Nano network does not offer a trust score based system or buyer-seller protections in case of transaction disputes. Both systems, however, can efficiently handle microtransactions at low-to-zero fees while providing consumers and merchants with a user-friendly interface.

As far as transaction confirmations, in the COTI network, two recent ‘tip’ transactions are selected randomly based on their Trust Score and built upon. The deeper the transactions are from the tips, the more reliable they are. In contrast, only recent blocks in the Nano network are selected for transaction confirmations.

In terms of regulation, COTI adheres to Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) procedures and is pursuing a DLT license from the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. Nano remains largely unregulated.

To hedge against price volatility, COTI provides merchants with hedging services to reduce, or eliminate, their exposure to currency fluctuations. Nano faces significant price volatility, much like other cryptocurrencies, with no recourse to hedging services.

Our chart below outlines the primary underlying differences between both networks:



We are excited to announce that COTI will be launching a special pre-sale limited to our community. The Pre-sale contributions will start on June 4th 2018 for 2 days and Available for whitelisted members only! For more details get in touch with us on Telegram or via email.

                                                                 
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8,525 registered COTI members will have the chance to participate in the community pre-sale contribution starting on June 4, 2018, at 07 AM UTC, with up to a 25% discount on the token price!



We’d like to extend our warm thanks to everyone who participated! As you all know, this pre-sale might be the first and last public sale held by COTI. Be sure to follow us on our social channels for all the updates.We are aware that some of you didn’t get a chance to participate, though you have wanted to, and we are considering options. For special requests please contact us.

Pre-sale contribution will start on June 4th, 2018, at 07 AM UTC for whitelisted members ONLY!

• Each registered user will be notified via email regarding his/her verification status. All documents are currently being verified. We thank you for your patience.
• The first 1,000 whitelisted members will be notified via email regarding the limited edition COTI debit card they won.
• Every 2000 COTI you purchased during the pre-sale will earn you a ticket to our special raffle, The winner will earn 100,000 COTI.
• Reminder of the full pre-sale details.

Our support team is here for you 24/7 on Telegram. You can also send an email to support@coti.io with any question.

Thank you to all consumers that have registered to our whitelist. Please note that the pre-sale contribution will be on June 4–5, 2018 for whitelisted members only!

                                                                 
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COTI’s CEO recently shared his thoughts on how the COTI network will leverage its growing merchant base to amplify mass adoption of the platform. Read his letter to the community.


Main points:

• Right product, right place, right time
  COTI will onboard merchants with high-demand products
• COTI above all
  COTI will be positioned as the premier choice for merchant payments processing
• Power of the collective
  Merchants’ consumer base will be leveraged to amplify COTI’s reach worldwide
• Inherent simplicity
  Opening a COTI account will be simple, user-friendly and intuitive

COTI’s vision

COTI, Currency of the Internet, is a cryptocurrency that is tailor made for payments. It reconciles the best of digital currencies with the best of traditional payments, namely Visa and Mastercard, through its innovative base protocol known as the TrustchainTM. Based on a directed acyclic graph (DAG), The COTI TrustchainTM creates a scalable and blockless protocol that can be utilized by any industry that needs high throughput and trust to operate, such as the payments space.

Our vision is to empower merchants and consumers to freely exchange value as simply as the internet exchanges information. The greatest question that lies ahead then is, how can we spearhead the mass adoption of COTI all around the globe much like the internet?

I think we can all agree that we care about how our hard earned money is spent, after all we purchase the products and services we desire. It goes without saying that if the payments process is done right, it should be seamless — a simple alchemy that provides the greatest value proposition to both consumers and merchants.

Right product, right place, right time

To incite this catalyst for change and amplify the demand for COTI, our focus lies in sourcing the right products that consumers want and making COTI the best way to purchase them. To this effect, we have begun onboarding international merchants who are interested in an alternative way to process payments that is favorable to them. This means low-to-zeros fees, instant settlements, low rolling reserve requirements, buyer-seller protections and hedging services - the list goes on.

When we get down to the fine details, this becomes a huge paradigm shift. From the time a transaction is processed, it must be filtered through 6–8 middlemen, each taking their own cut in processing fees. Online merchants typically have a 10–12% profit margin, but must pay a third of it in processing fees, which drives down their bottom line.

COTI effectively cuts out the middlemen, saving merchants over $200 billion every year. What’s more, merchants receive their money instantly instead of having their cash flows tied up for weeks in rolling reserves to account for chargebacks. Last but not least, COTI always works, unlike declined credit cards due to cross-border limitations that also fail to account for the two billion unbanked population.

COTI above all

Merchants around the world are bullish on these prospects, which is exactly why COTI has been able to sign over 2,000 merchants in under one week in preparation for the August alpha net launch.So how do consumers fit into an ecosystem which consists of merchants that sell products that are in high demand and prefer to accept COTI over credit cards?

For starters, merchants have the ability to encourage users to select one form of payment over the other. It can be a discount, a bonus or a loyalty program. If this sounds familiar, then you’re on the right track. VISA and Mastercard have been competing for years through their respective loyalty programs. When it comes down to it, do you really care which credit card you use? If anything, your biggest concern is how much mileage you’re getting from your payment method — in other words, what’s in it for you.

COTI is also the answer for consumers who have had their transactions declined on account of false positives, or when credit card companies falsely flag transactions on account of suspicious activity or geographic limitations. In such instances, COTI isn’t the preferred way, it’s the only way.

Power of the collective

The stimulus for COTI’s rapid growth is to streamline the merchant to consumer purchase lifecycle as much as possible. Do you remember the early days of PayPal? It was the only way you could purchase products from certain eBay merchants because it was their preferred and most trusted payment method. While building a state-of-the-art payment system is crucial, merchants also play a significant role and are the path to leveraging a strong consumer base.

At COTI, we are advocates for partnering with the right merchants, as this will this be a direct viaduct to reaching more consumers and inspiring more communities to adopt COTI as a preferred payment method. Esoteric cryptocurrencies fit for specialized communities will be a thing of the past, as COTI will be an easy to use access card shared between millions of merchants and consumers all around the world.

Inherent simplicity

Because COTI has been designed as a coin, wallet, exchange and debit card,purchasing it for the first time will be extremely simple. During the checkout process, consumers will have the ability to pay for a purchase using COTI through a seamless integration with COTI’s exchange. What’s more, COTI is offering consumers their first 100 COTI free of cost.

The mass adoption of COTI as a preferred payment method around the world is eminent and within our reach. It all begins with onboarding the right merchants with high demand products and providing them with unrivaled payment standards. This will be the impetus for drawing in more communities to the COTI network and providing best in class solutions to common shortcomings experienced by both digital currencies and traditional payment systems.


Thank you to all consumers that have registered to our whitelist. Please note that the pre-sale contribution will be on June 4–5, 2018 for whitelisted members only!

                                                                 
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Our team has gathered all the information you need to know about COTI’s community registration and pre-sale.



1. When is the ICO?

We are right now now a private sale for a minimum contribution of 50 ETH. We’ve opened the white-list for our special and limited community pre-sale! For our community members only.The whitelist registration started on May 21 and will last for 4 days only ! We’ve opened the whitelist for our special and limited community pre-sale! For our community members only.

2. How can I buy COTI?

From May 21, we have opened the whitelist registration on COTI’s website — press here. The pre-sale contribution will be on June 4–5, 2018 for whitelisted members only! Please make sure you have subscribed for the newsletter on our website to get all the latest news.

3. What is the token price?

The token price is $0.1 per COTI. By purchasing COTI in one of our early stage sales you get a discount. On our community pre-sale the token price will be as following:

Two types of tokens:

• No lock-up at $0.085 (as 15% discount)
• 6-months lock-up at $0.075 (as 25% discount)

4. Will we get to choose whether we get the 15% discount or the 25% discount?

Yes, on the contribution process, you will be asked to choose if you want to lock-up your contribution or not. According to that you will get the 15% or the 25%.

5. How much for minimum and maximum contribution?

Min. contribution: 0.1 ETH / 0.01 BTC
Max. contribution:
First 24 hours: 1.5 ETH / 0.15 BTC
After 24 hours: 50 ETH / 5 BTC

This is to ensure a fair shot and an equal opportunity for all our members!

6. What are the payment/purchase methods?

We accept only BTC and ETH during the community pre-sale.

7. What is the total supply of COTI?

The total supply of COTI tokens during the formative stages of the network will be limited to 2,000,000,000 COTI.

8. What is the soft cap and hard cap of the whole token sale?

Our overall cap is $30M to be split between our community sale, private sale and public sale. The cap for the current community pre-sale is not high and therefore we have limited the first day of sale, to allow maximum members of our community to join.

9. Is there an individual cap?

During community pre-sale, individual cap in the first 24 hours is 1.5 ETH / 0.15 BTC and after 24 hours will be 50 ETH / 5 BTC.

10. How much percent of the total supply is allocated to the sale?

30% of the total supply is allocated to the sale (all stages combined). So a total of 600,000,000 COTI. Please see the token economy on the website.

11. What means lock-up period and what are they?

A lock-up period is a time frame in which you cannot use the coins you’ve purchased with that specific lock-up period.

The lock-up during COTI’s community pre-sale
The lock-up period is optional and can be for 6 months only.

The lock-up on the private sale
The lock-up is obligatory and can be of 6, 12, or 24 months. Of course, the longest your lock-up period is, the better will be the discount on the token price!

All lock-up periods will commence at the conclusion of the token sale.

12. When is the whitelist?

On May 21 we’ve started the whitelist for the community pre-sale! By being a part of our community and by subscribing to our newsletter, you are eligible to participate in the community pre-sale! As the community pre-sale is limited, first come — first served!

13. What is the exchange rate during pre-sale?

The rate for ETH/USD and BTC/USD will be set in advance. Following the pre-sale, rates will be retrospectively updated to the best possible value that was registered during the pre-sale. This will enable all participants to receive the best possible exchange rate. The sooner you participate, the better!

14. Who to contact during the pre-sale?

Our Telegram group is active 24/7 and we have a live chat support on the website during the day. However, to participate in the community pre-sale you don’t have to contact anyone - you will be able to simply access the website and start the process there.

15. What not to do?

Never make any payment to someone over another channel than the COTI website.
Never send ETH or BTC to any address you received via email or Telegram! No one from our team will never ever ask you personally or contact you in order to make any payment!

16. Where to send my ETH/BTC ?

Every participant in the presale will receive a UNIQUE ETH/BTC ADDRESS and he’s the only one allowed to send funds there.Please make sure not to disclose this address to anyone, otherwise your token allocation could be harmed.Also, never send ETH or BTC to any address you received via email of Telegram!

17. How to participate in the private sale?

To participate in the private sale for a minimum contribution of 50 ETH (or equivalent in other currencies), in exchange to special discount, you need to send an e-mail . All the details will be given to your from there.

The COTI community is continuously growing at a rapid rate. If you have any questions, you are welcome to get in touch with us on Telegram or via email. We will be providing further updates in the near future. Register today and spread the word!

                                                                 
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COTI has been making the media rounds as of late, featuring across a number of news sites, podcasts and YouTube channels. Check out our roundup below to see what everyone is saying about COTI.



1. Ivan On Tech - Interview with Shahaf Bar Geffen
2. The Bad Crypto Podcast — Interview with Shahaf Bar Geffen
3. The Crypto Crew- COTI review
4. Investing - Are We All Going To Start Using Digital Currencies Sooner Than We Think?
5. Finance magnates - Meet COTI, the Company that is Aiming to Fix Crypto Payments Forever
6. Cryptoninjas - COTI network: Why Aren’t Cryptocurrencies Truly Used as Currencies?
7. CCN - Meet Coti: The Blockchain Protocol That Restores Trust in the Payments Ecosystem
8. Coinidol - COTI to Integrate with Bancor to Facilitate a Robust Payments Network for Millions of Users
9. Coinspeaker - COTI Partners with Global Payment Network Processing.com - Offering Crypto Payment Solutions to Tens of Thousands of Real-World Merchants
10. Coin news asia - What’s in Store for the Future of Cryptocurrencies?
11. Nasdaq - COTI Signs Up Over 2,000 Merchants To Its Crypto Payments Service
12. Payments cards and mobile -DAG - The Next Generation of Blockchain

                                                                 
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The Blockchain Expo will be taking place 27 June, 2018 in Amsterdam, and COTI has just been shortlisted for the Best Cryptocurrency 2018 Award. We couldn’t be more excited!



 The awards ceremony will recognise and celebrate the most compelling pioneers, successful applications of blockchain within industry and standout technology contributors.

 https://www.the-blocks.com/shortlist-2018/

The Blockchain Expo is one of the biggest in the industry, and covers the most innovative blockchains, best cryptocurrencies and the leading contributors to the rise of blockchain technologies. To view the full list of award categories, head over to The Blocks.



                                                                 
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A number of ICO listing sites recently reviewed COTI, assigning the platform high marks across the board. From ICO Rating to CoinSchedule, COTI has been touted as one of the most promising projects in the cryptocurrency space.



A number of evaluation criteria is used by ICO listing sites to rank main players in the digital currency sphere, including technology, product offering, team proof and social media influence. Read on below to see what everyone has to say about COTI.


COTI received an impressive A out of A gold project rating by Coinschedule. An A indicates the highest possible trust score, confirming the credibility of a project. The rating covers the pre-sale, financial figures, community influence and team proof.


COTI secured a 9.0/10 rating by ICO Marks, with highest ratings across social media activity and team proof. ICO Marks uses a number of parameters to generate a score, including social activity, product merit, team proof and business acumen (e.g., a technical whitepaper and business overview). The rating methodology is quite comprehensive, which makes our 9.0 a standout.


ICO bazaar awarded COTI with an AA out of AAA, receiving high marks for the website, media, team and technology. The goal of the ICObazaar rating system is to provide a rigorous, in-depth, and independent grade for any given project running an ICO in order to help investors make informed decisions. Their rating methodology provides a high grain overview of many cryptocurrency projects, addressing factors like the whitepaper, team, community influence, technology and website. An AAA score is a 5-grade rating, the absolute highest investment grade, so an AA score at 4.5 is the penultimate score one can receive on ICObazaar.


Track ICO assigned COTI a perfect 5 out of 5 rating. Track ICO was squarely established to provide its users with reliable information about the best Initial Coin Offering (ICO) projects, so we couldn’t be happier with our 5-star rating. The ICO offering, social media influence and team expertise were the main evaluation criteria for the review.


COTI made it to ICO Hot List’s ‘Hot’ shortlist, marking it as a promising upcoming project. ICO Hot List works diligently to bring users a curated catalog of leading Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) that demonstrate potential across their whitepapers, teams, roadmaps, responsiveness to inquiries and more. ICO Hot List is known to scrutinize the technology and available codebase of countless ICO offerings, as well as project maturity and progress, so COTI’s shortlisting is quite exciting. The review covers the COTI project’s product features, ICO details and team.


CryptoPotato assigned COTI an 8.4 out of 10 rating, citing that the project was developed to exclusively satisfy daily consumer payments use cases, and indeed, provides a thorough solution that addresses the market need for consumers and merchants. CryptoPotato provided one of the most comprehensive and impressive reviews we’ve seen to date, which is to be expected from one of the leading ICO listing sites. CryptoPotato measures a successful ICO by short term and long term ROI estimations. COTI’s whitepaper, technology, token utility, team and project potential received the highest ranks according to the ICO evaluation results.


Coinlauncher awarded COTI with a 9.92 out of 10 rating. Coinlauncher’s insights and discovery team are market leaders for challenger brand audience insights, providing data across social media and community platforms that directly influence marketing and media strategies, considering behavioural sciences, profiling & interests. The tokenomics, technical whitepaper and social media influence were some of the primary evaluation factors.


ICO Rating recently assigned COTI a ‘Stable+’ rating, describing the project as promising with great potential to outshine traditional blockchain technologies. ICO Rating is an authority in ICO evaluations and provided a high level overview on the COTI project. ICO Rating’s evaluation methodology is based on a 10-point system (Positive+, Positive, Stable+, Stable, Risky+, Risky, Risky-, Negative, Negative-), so a Stable+ rank is a win for COTI. Projects are evaluated against characteristics such as team, developers, white paper, MVP, legal, Smart Contract (for ICOs), partners and advisors.


COTI received a 4 out of 5 rating by ICO Bench based on 17 expert ratings. The team and product were the highest weighted criteria in the ICO evaluation. ICO Bench Experts independently and voluntarily provide their contributions to the community. If no expert has rated the ICO, only ICO analyzer’s results are used. Ratings and ICO analyzer results are updated and re-calculated every few hours.


COTI secured 4.5 out of 5 stars based on a review by NewsBTC, which covers team experience, company milestones, financial figures, security and media influence in its scoring methodology. The COTI project’s vision, team expertise and security were the highest rated evaluation factors.

                                                                 
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While credit cards provide convenience and security to people all around the globe, there are many stakeholders involved in the process of confirming credit card transactions. These third party financial intermediaries drive up fees for merchants, although consumers are also left with the short end of the stick. Six to eight middlemen are typically involved in verifying a single transaction, each taking their cut and reducing merchant cash flows in the process.

The many middlemen involved in a single transaction

The transaction verification process begins when a credit card is swiped at a retail payment terminal or processed over the Internet through an online shopping cart. Such payment gateways are the first intermediary and provide merchants with the ability to accept major credit cards.

A number of other middlemen are involved in verifying a transaction, including credit cards (e.g., Visa, Mastercard) and credit card issuing banks (e.g., Wells Fargo, CITI). Credit card processors, also known as acquirers, act as messengers between merchants and credit card associations. They pass along batch information and authorization requests so merchants can complete transactions. Yet another intermediary is a merchant account provider, or a company that manages credit card processing services (e.g., sales and support). From the payment gateway through to merchant account providers, each party charges its respective fees.



The verification process

Authorisation is the first step in transaction verification. It opens the payment gateway in order to verify the account balance and ensure that the cardholder has sufficient funds available to make the purchase. Next, funds are held in the capture step until settlement is reached. To settle a transaction, a number of banks, credit card companies and other relevant stakeholders must sync relevant transaction activity. The duration of this process can take anywhere from a few days to two weeks, which creates a strain on merchant cash flows.

Transaction fees

Transaction fees are typically charged to the merchant and sometimes to the cardholder. They include transaction fees, flat fees and incidental fees.

• Transaction fees are levied every time a transaction is run and are the largest cost of running a merchant account.
• Transaction fees, known as Interchange and Assessment fees, are charged by credit cards and card issuing banks. They typically consist of a wholesale and markup fee. The wholesale fee is a percentage of the transaction in addition to a flat fee (e.g., 2.10% + .10). The markup fee could be interchange plus (a fixed mark up like 0.2% + .10) or a tiered markup (i.e., Qualified, Mid-Qualified and Non-Qualified). Some payment systems like PayPal provide blended plans that create one consistent rate and fee. While this can oftentimes be expensive, no monthly fee is charged, which can be worthwhile for small businesses.
• Flat fees: Flat fees include the cost to run a point-of-sale (POS) terminal or online shopping cart, as well as monthly minimum fees and network fees.
• Incidental fees: These appear on a per-case basis, such as when a chargeback is requested or issued.

Fees vary between different credit card types. American Express usually charges higher merchant fees than Visa and Mastercard, which usually charge approximately 2%. Small businesses usually pay a higher transaction percentage in fees than high transaction volume businesses, such as department stores, major supermarket chains and large online retailers like Amazon.

Fees that are commonly charged to cardholders include international transaction fees, annual fees, late payment fees and interest fees. When a cardholder swipes their credit card in a country that uses a different currency, the credit card company makes a currency conversion and the cardholder is charged in the merchant’s local currency. Additionally, the cardholder is charged an international transaction fee, which is currently 3% through Mastercard and many other credit card companies.



The COTI ecosystem

COTI, Currency of the Internet, has developed the TrustchainTM, a unique base-level protocol which is
highly scalable, extremely efficient and centered around trust. The protocol consists of FinTech
application layers resting on a blockless distributed ledger, which utilises a directed acyclic graph (DAG) data structure. This DAG-based model significantly reduces both consumer and merchant fees while overcoming many of the shortfalls of traditional and digital payment systems.

How does COTI save merchants fees?

The COTI ecosystem has a smaller number of stakeholders and intermediaries than traditional payment systems like Visa and Mastercard, which results in low-to-zero fees. What’s more, reputable merchants exhibiting high Trust Scores incur lower fees in the COTI network. Because of COTI’s buyer-seller protection system, chargeback fees are virtually eliminated, which is also a major cost-saver for merchants.

How does COTI process merchants faster than most credit card systems?

COTI’s DAG-based consensus can handle 10,000 TPS, which enables instantaneous transaction confirmations. Moreover, COTI’s decentralised Mediation System can handle buyer-seller disputes more efficiently and at a low cost. As for merchant rolling reserves, they are held for at least seven days, as compared to 14–90 days with other common payment systems. For cross-border transactions, COTI’s currency exchange provides network participants with continuous access to liquid markets for streamlined digital and fiat currency exchanges.

Thank you to all consumers that have registered to our whitelist. Please note that the pre-sale contribution will be on June 4–5, 2018 for whitelisted members only!

The COTI community is continuously growing at a rapid rate. If you have any questions, you are welcome to get in touch with us on Telegram or viaemail. We will be providing further updates in the near future.

                                                                 
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WE ARE ON AIR! COMMUNITY PRE-SALE WHITELIST IS OFFICIALLY OPEN! AND ITS FOR 4 DAYS ONLY! MAKE SURE YOU GOT EVERYTHING READY FOR THE REGISTRATION PROCESS. SIGN-UPS WILL TAKE PLACE FROM 21-25 MAY 2018, SPACES ARE LIMITED AND PARTICIPATION IS ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVE BASIS, SO BE SURE TO SECURE YOUR SEAT. CLICK TO REGISTER NOW! https://presale.coti.io/

                                                                 
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You can see all our active bounties in this link: https://alpha.bounty0x.io/hosts/COTI

Secure your seat to COTI’s limited pre-sale! This might be your last chance to participate in COTI’s token sale!



We are opening the community pre-sale whitelist on May 21 at 7 AM (UTC) for 4 days only!



This might be your last chance to participate in COTI’s token sale!

   

• The community pre-sale whitelist will start May 21, 2018
• Contributions will open June 4–5, 2018
• Up to a 25% discount on the token price
• Contribution method: ETH/BTC
• Minimum contribution: 0.1 ETH / 0.01 BTC
• Maximum contribution: 1.5 ETH / 0.15 BTC within the first 24 hours; 50 ETH / 5 BTC after 24 hours
• Additional exclusive benefits for our members!

ON YOUR MARKS -Prepare the following documents:

Proof of identity — identity card, passport, or driver’s license

 Proof of residence — a recent utility bill, i.e. an electricity bill, water bill, gas bill, or bank statement.

 You can read more about the required documents and the whitelist process in the following Medium post: COTI’s Whitelist Guide

GET SET

On May 21 be sure to register and provide all your documents as soon as we open the whitelist in order to reserve your seat.

GO!

The pre-sale contribution will be June 4–5, 2018 for whitelisted members only!

Contribution method: ETH and BTC

Two token prices:
 — No lock-up at $0.085 (15% discount)
 — 6-month lock-up at $0.075 (25% discount)
*Please prepare the address of your ERC-20 compatible wallet in order to receive the COTI tokens.

Minimum contribution:
0.1 ETH / 0.01 BTC
Maximum contribution:
First 24 hours*: 1.5 ETH / 0.15 BTC

Thereafter, the maximum contribution will be 50 ETH / 5 BTC

*This is to ensure an equal participation opportunity for all our members!

Exchange rate: Will be set in advance and announced prior to the contribution.

Following  the pre-sale, we will change the rate for all contributors with the best rate that occurred during the community pre-sale! This will enable all participants to receive the best possible exchange rate. The sooner  you participate, the better!

Don’t miss out! Additional exclusive benefits for our members



Be sure to spread the word to your circles. More updates coming soon, so stay tuned!

                                                                    
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During the last week, the COTI research and development team built upon the  progress made in the last months and has been working full-force to  implement the COTI alpha net.

   

• We have made some modifications to the ITSA (Initial Trust Score) to make  our algorithm consistent with the agreed upon list of parameters and to  make it more applicable to merchants.
• We  have defined the first version of the TrustScore API, which handles  communications between the TrustScore Server, Full Nodes, and wallets.  The first release of our ITSA/ITSU frontend interface is now internally  available.
• We continued modeling research for the ITSU update in the following ways:
• Finding and collecting data from real payment systems in order to run simulations with it.
• Defining the ideal parameters for ITSU real time adjustments.
• Exploring efficient ways to optimize the algorithm.
• Optimizing the algorithm ML and weights.
• Modifying the resulting TS distribution to correlate with our consensus algorithm.
• Development  on our first release of TrustScore nodes is currently running in full  mode. We have made significant progress towards proving how Trust Score  (TS) nodes calculate Trust Scores. We are currently developing the TS  Nodes in a way that will enable us to prove how TS nodes can compute the  Trust Score of a user from the last Clusterstamp. In this way, any user  can query his or her TS and receive proof on how it was calculated from  the TS node.
• If  the various queried TS nodes produce different TS results, it will be  easy to verify which one is correct as the proof with the longest  calculation will be the correct one. False transactions not included in  the Cluster, or incorrect parameter changes (not on the ledger system)  will also be identifiable.
• We continued intensive work into our first merchant integration solution.  The solution consists of our first frontend web application, the COTI wallet, and a backend COTI layer, which will serve both the wallet  application and third party API calls from merchant backend servers.
• Our research and development team continued work towards finalizing the  first iteration of the COTI base protocol. There has been a great deal of alpha net development progress and more to come in the upcoming weeks.

Our limited community pre-sale registration starts May 21 at 7 AM (UTC). The full details will be out in our newsletter and in the COTI Telegram group. Be sure to spread the word to your circles.

                                                                    
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COTI is  committed to following guidelines put forth by financial services  regulations. You will therefore be required to complete a Whitelist  process prior to participating in COTI’s limited community pre-sale!

The first 1,000 pre-sale participants who fully complete the Whitelist  process will be rewarded with a special limited edition COTI debit card once they are released in 2019.

We are opening the community pre-sale whitelist on May 21 at 7 AM (UTC) for 4 days only! To ensure that you can take full advantage of this opportunity, we have prepared this guide for you!

In order to be whitelisted, you will need to provide one Proof of  Identity (POI) item and one Proof of Residence (POR) document. Both  documents must be legible color copies with four visible edges in png,  jpg, or pdf format.

A) PROOF OF IDENTITY

One  of the following: a valid government-issued identification card, such  as a passport, driver’s license, or a national identity document (ID).

Examples are provided below:

National identity document / Driver’s license / Passport



B) PROOF OF ADDRESS

One  of the following: a recent utility bill (telephone, electricity, water,  or gas bill), a personal bank statement, or a credit card statement.Please make sure the document includes your full name and address, preferably in English.

Examples are provided below:

Bank statement:



Gas bill / Water bill / Electricity bill



Disclaimer

Please note that COTI may require additional information and documents as deemed necessary.

Our limited community pre-sale registration starts May 21 at 7 AM (UTC). The full details will be out in our newsletter and in the COTI Telegram group. Be sure to spread the word to your circles.

                                                                    
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