Dear community,
One of the stickiest issues we had to deal with is the bridge issue (“when open bridge?”). We are obviously aware of the difficulties it creates for some of our users wishing to transfer their Native assets to cold storage or just move between exchanges.
The following is some background information and a plan to solve the bridge issue:
COTI is available on three different MainNets:
- The Trustchain, our native MainNet. This is the MainNet that powers COTI, including merchant’s activities, staking, etc
- Ethereum — the COTI ERC20 version is how exchanges usually list COTI (it’s easier for them) and how we connect with Defi
- Binance Chain — the COTI BEP2 version is a version listed only on Binance
The bridge enables users to interoperate between all of these MainNets. COTI needs to regulate the number of tokens between these chains, to operate properly, hence the bridge has a cap.
With the KuCoin hack happening by surprise and with Binance’s inherent dominance, a lot of users have decided to move from Native COTI to ERC20, reaching the Bridge’s gap for swapping Native to ERC20, creating a price gap between exchanges. While this gap is destined to be closed, we have devised a plan to allow a smooth and fair operation of the bridge.
It is also worth mentioning that the way the bridge works now, moving from Native to ERC20 is an action that has gas costs that COTI has been subsidizing.
Our plan to better regulate the amounts of tokens on each MainNet and to solve the bridge problem, involves the following fundamentals:
- Increasing the demand for the native COTI — when more users need more Native, there is less stress on the bridge to swap Native to ERC20
- Adding cold storage utility for Native COTI, allowing users to safely store their assets without needing to use the bridge
- Technically Improve the bridge and make it more fair for everyone
Here is our plan:
Increasing the demand for Native COTI
As merchants’ activities continue to grow on our network, the organic demand for Native COTI continues to increase.
Staking 3.0, which was introduced this week, will dramatically increase the amounts of Native COTI that can be staked, raising the demand for it, while lowering the circulating supply.
Last, listing the Native COTI on another major exchange will also increase the liquidity and demand of the Native COTI.
We are working relentlessly on all three and expect to see results in the coming weeks.
Adding Ledger Cold Storage utility for Native COTI
Users who wish to use cold storage today are forced to switch to ERC20. Developing a Native COTI integration to Ledger is key and we’re happy to say that the backend application for that is already ready. We are now developing the front-end parts of it and it will be submitted to Ledger well within this quarter.
Bridge improvements
The first thing to understand about the bridge is that each transaction from Native to ERC20 has gas costs. COTI has been bearing these costs for users since the Bridge was originally launched, which is not the case on other Ethereum based platforms, where users pay their own gas costs.
We are at a point now where we can raise the Native-to-ERC20 cap on the bridge and open it. However, in order to open the bridge for Native-to-ERC20 transfers, we have to ask users to bear their own Ethereum transaction costs. To open the bridge, we’re implementing a mechanism that lets users that need to make such a swap to cover their gas costs. This will allow us to immediately open the bridge for those who wish to swap from Native to ERC20. Other improvements, like automatic retrieval of your tokens back on failed transactions, are already in design. We are in the midst of implementing these fixes and plan to release a version and open the bridge in less than 2 weeks and in any event no later before Staking 3.0.
To summarize, we are obviously aware and attentive to the ongoing issues using the bridge. It will be solved and the price gap between exchanges will be closed. Our plan lays on the fundamentals of raising the demand for Native COTI, adding cold storage utility and adding technical improvements to the bridge. The matter is of utmost importance for us and we are already working on it.
Thank you for your patience, stay COTI!
For all of our updates and to join the conversation, be sure to check out our channels:
Website: https://coti.io
Twitter: https://twitter.com/COTInetwork
Telegram: https://t.me/COTInetwork
Github: https://github.com/coti-io
Discord: https://discord.me/coti
Technical whitepaper: https://coti.io/files/COTI-technical-whitepaper.pdf
