For the February Spotlight Article, we interviewed Shahaf, one of the founders and CEO at COTI. COTI is an enterprise-grade fintech platform that empowers organizations to build their payment solution and digitize any currency to save time and money.
Hey Shahaf! Happy to connect today and learn more about the COTI project! Can you tell us more about the project and the problem you were addressing?
Thanks for having me! In a nutshell, COTI is a financial technology company that uses the blockchain to solve traditional banking problems. COTI’s goal is to meet the challenges of both centralized and decentralized finance (DeFi) such as fees, latency, global inclusion, risk, clogging, and complexity.
COTI will solve these challenges by introducing a new type of DAG-based base protocol and infrastructure that is scalable, fast, private, inclusive, low cost, and optimized for finance.
What are the most important things about COTI?
The most important thing to know is that we are the only layer 1 solution for payments. The other layer 1’s out there are optimized for other things. And now, with Trustchain 2.0 and the upcoming MultiDAG 2.0, we are going to top our game. Right now, we have the COTI coin, but in the future, we are going to present a new token standard, issuing more tokens, some of them will be created by COTI, some of them will be created by other enterprises and merchants who want to develop on the COTI network.
Going forward, how will COTI make an impact in the crypto space or on the world?
COTI has a one-of-a-kind technology. The core of COTI’s infrastructure lies within the Trustchain. COTI is based on DAG (directed acyclic graph) data structure, which works in tandem to drive scalability, processing over 10,000 transactions per second. The Multi-DAG allows enterprises to issue their coins on the COTI Truschain protocol. The Multi-DAG is not only optimized for stable coins, but it’s optimized for all coins and tokens.
Now, what are your accomplishments so far, and what are you most proud of?
Wow, we have had so many big milestones. Where do I begin?
We launched our Mainnet (the Trustchain) back in 2019, now processing more than 10K TPS.
We developed MultiDAG, which enables issuing tokens on our infrastructure.
We launched the COTI bank account and debit card.
We just launched the COTI Treasury, an algorithmic and decentralized pool of $COTI, where users can deposit $COTI and be rewarded for their participation.
Our partnership with Cardano includes the following developments:
- ADA Pay- an ADA payment system for businesses, Issued by COTI and allows merchants to accept ADA payments with instant settlement.
- COTI is the official issuer of Djed - the first algorithmic stablecoin built on Cardano. It will use smart contracts to ensure price stability and maintain a base coin reserve, allowing users to use the stablecoin for DeFi transactions.
COTI developed the Crypto Volatility Index (CVI), a VIX for crypto. CVI allows users to hedge themselves against market volatility and impermanent loss.
What is the future of COTI? For example, what new things to come, and what will it mean for the overall project?
We plan to evolve our offering from payments to a fully-encompassing next-generation financial system, creating value for $COTI holders. What to expect:
MultiDAG 2.0 - which can lead to a new token standard.
Djed and its reserve coins.
Leveraged volatility tokens.
Impermanent loss protection for CVI users.
More partnerships, growth opportunities, and a few more things worth waiting for.
In addition, the fees from our ecosystem will be streamlined into the Treasury as rewards for our users.
Tell us about your team. Who are the people behind COTI?
I don’t want to gloat, but we have an amazing team at COTI. The COTI team includes engineers, mathematicians, economists, marketers, researchers, and veterans from the fintech and banking industries. For instance, Dr. Nir Haloani, COTI’s CTO, is the former co-founder and CTO of a company that IBM later acquired. We are growing rapidly, and our team is getting bigger.
Which partnerships have you engaged so far, and which ones are the most impactful?
We are fortunate to have some great partners. We have had a great relationship with Cardano over the last three years. Cardano ecosystem venture fund-cFund announced its first VC investment in COTI to accelerate integration and deepen the cooperation between COTI and Cardano. As mentioned earlier, some really impactful things we have done with Cardano are ADA Pay and Djed. Some other partnerships to highlight are the partnerships with, Chainlink, Simplex, Sundaeswap, Lovelace, Constellation, Ardana, and more.
Thank you for your time! Do you have anything else to add?
Thank you for inviting me to do this interview. The last thing I would like to add is that 2022 will be a huge year for COTI. We launched the Treasury to make COTI more decentralized and give our users more opportunities to earn money. We are also moving from a single coin infrastructure to a multi-coin infrastructure and launching the Djed stablecoin built on Cardano. This year, many big things are happening, so make sure you follow us to stay up to date.
Website: https://coti.io
Twitter: https://twitter.com/COTInetwork
Telegram: https://t.me/COTInetwork