COTI

coti
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CoinYQ Dossier

COTI left a trust-scored payment DAG for privacy that contracts must choose field by field

COTI did not arrive at privacy by adding encryption to its original payment chain. It changed the machine beneath the ticker. Trustchain used a DAG and reputation scores; V2 speaks EVM, settles as an Ethereum Layer 2 and offers encrypted computation. The migration preserved the COTI name while creating a harder reading problem: which ledger holds the unit, who can change its supply, and which pieces of an application are actually private?

Trust scores were the first answer to payment throughput

COTI’s first network organized transactions in a directed acyclic graph instead of one block sequence. Proof of Trust assigned scores to participants and used those scores in confirmation. COTI Pay, merchant APIs and an arbitration process made the token part of a payment stack rather than a general smart-contract platform.

That architecture still has a visible afterlife. The legacy explorer is online and identifies itself as Trustchain. A historical balance there is not an Ethereum ERC-20 balance and is not automatically a V2 native balance.

The 2023 announcement changed both the problem and the developer audience

On 13 December 2023 the project introduced COTI V2 as a privacy network over Ethereum. The announcement explicitly rejected launching an unrelated new token, but the technical shift was large: a proprietary DAG gave way to an EVM-compatible rollup aimed at contracts handling sensitive data.

The promise of continuity therefore concerns the token economy and community, not identical ledger mechanics. Users needed migration routes; developers needed Solidity tooling and a new model for deciding which state should be encrypted.

Garbled circuits protect values only when software uses the private path

V2 separates protected data by lifecycle. Encrypted transaction inputs arrive as Inputtext, encrypted storage uses Ciphertext or Usertext, and Garbledtext exists only during computation. Garbled circuits let parties compute over private inputs while the network stores encrypted results.

This is programmable confidentiality, not an invisibility cloak. Ethereum-style public state still exists. COTI’s own guide shows that a view function which decrypts a balance carelessly can reveal it to everyone. Application code, permissions and key handling determine the real boundary.

Four rollout dates explain why “mainnet launch” has two March answers

The developer network opened in May 2024 and Testnet in September. Mainnet then began as a phased release: block zero carries 22 March 2025 at 17:00 UTC, matching the private deployment and token-generation stage, while COTI announced public access, Explorer and migration instructions on 26 March.

The distinction matters because infrastructure existence and public usability were separate events. Chain ID 2632500 now identifies V2 Mainnet, while the old Trustchain explorer remains a different system.

One ticker now demands contract-level supply accounting

The official bridge connects Ethereum ERC-20 COTI to native V2 COTI, while old V1 units used the VIPER wallet path. These are representations moved through conversion flows; adding every displayed total would risk double counting bridged value.

The old V1 accounting began from 2 billion native units and minted wrapped ERC-20 only when matching native units were locked. That historical ceiling does not cap today’s Ethereum code. The Ethereum contract has its own control plane. It has no pause, freeze, blacklist or upgrade route. Its owner can mint until an irreversible finish switch is used, and holders can burn. On 5 September 2026 the owner remained set, no successor was pending, mintingFinished was false and totalSupply was 3,402,225,984.268088325126165116. V2 monetary policy and Treasury rules are a separate protocol layer, so neither figure should be presented as a universal fixed cap.

How the project changed

  1. January 2019
    Trustchain testnet

    COTI publicly demonstrated the payment-oriented DAG network and wallet.

  2. 13 December 2023
    V2 direction announced

    The project chose an Ethereum privacy Layer 2 and said it would retain the COTI token economy.

  3. 21 May 2024
    Developer Network

    Builders first received a Solidity environment with garbled-circuit features.

  4. 17 September 2024
    Testnet

    The public test network opened with GC and MPC capabilities.

  5. 22 March 2025
    V2 genesis and private phase

    Mainnet block zero was timestamped during the phased private deployment and TGE.

  6. 26 March 2025
    Public Mainnet release

    COTI announced public network access, Explorer and V1/ERC-20 migration routes.

Evidence and primary sources

Last evidence review: 2026-09-05

What is COTI?

COTI is now an EVM-compatible privacy Layer 2 anchored to Ethereum. Its V2 mainnet uses COTI as the native gas asset and gives Solidity contracts additional encrypted data types for inputs, storage and computation. That description belongs to the network launched publicly in March 2025.

The name also covers an older system. COTI originally ran Trustchain, a proprietary directed-acyclic-graph ledger designed for payments and scored participants through Proof of Trust. The legacy explorer still exposes that chain. Ethereum ERC-20 COTI at 0xddb3422497e61e13543bea06989c0789117555c5 is another representation. A bridge or the V1 wallet performs conversion; the same-looking ticker does not make balances on three ledgers interchangeable without a migration transaction.

What problem does COTI solve?

The first COTI tried to improve merchant payments by replacing a single blockchain sequence with a DAG and using reputation-derived trust scores to order and confirm transactions. That design produced its own wallet, payment tools and arbitration model, but it also left developers outside the EVM environment and tied the project to a specialized payment thesis.

By late 2023 COTI chose a different problem: public smart-contract networks reveal balances, bids, votes and business logic that many applications need to restrict. V2 moved toward Ethereum compatibility and programmable confidentiality. The difficult part is selective privacy. An application must decide what stays public, what is encrypted, who may decrypt it and how users move COTI between old and new rails.

How does COTI work?

COTI V2 keeps ordinary EVM state and adds types for protected values. Inputtext carries encrypted transaction inputs; Ciphertext and Usertext store encrypted values; Garbledtext represents transient values during computation. Garbled circuits and multiparty computation evaluate those values without exposing the underlying inputs. The documentation warns developers that a careless decrypt function can reveal a supposedly private balance to everyone, so privacy is a contract-level choice rather than a blanket property of every transaction. The current PrivateERC20 interface indexes sender and recipient addresses in its Transfer event while protecting value fields, so “private transfer” does not mean invisible counterparties in that implementation.

Rollout happened in stages: Developer Network on 21 May 2024, Testnet on 17 September, a private mainnet/TGE phase whose genesis block is dated 22 March 2025, and public access announced on 26 March. The current network uses chain ID 2632500. The bridge supports native COTI and gCOTI on V2 and ERC-20 COTI and gCOTI on Ethereum; V1 holders used a separate VIPER-wallet path.

The Ethereum token contract remains operational outside V2. Its verified code lets the owner mint while mintingFinished is false, lets holders burn their own tokens and uses a pending-owner handoff. Live reads on 5 September 2026 showed 3,402,225,984.268088325126165116 units, a nonzero owner, no pending owner and minting still open. That supply is the Ethereum representation’s contract state, not a count that can simply be added to every bridged native representation.

Key facts

  • COTI’s earlier Trustchain was a proprietary DAG payment ledger using Proof of Trust scores.
  • The V2 pivot was announced on 13 December 2023 as a privacy-focused Ethereum Layer 2.
  • Devnet opened on 21 May 2024 and Testnet on 17 September 2024.
  • V2 block zero is dated 22 March 2025; public mainnet access was announced on 26 March.
  • COTI V2 Mainnet uses chain ID 2632500 and COTI as native gas.
  • V1 native, Ethereum ERC-20 and V2 native COTI are separate ledger representations connected by migration tools.
  • Private inputs, stored values and values in computation use different gcEVM data types.
  • Privacy is selective; current PrivateERC20 exposes indexed sender and recipient addresses while protecting value fields.
  • The Ethereum ERC-20 has 18 decimals and supports owner minting, holder burning and two-step ownership transfer, but no pause, freeze, blacklist or upgrade function.
  • On 5 September 2026 the ERC-20 owner was nonzero, pending owner zero and mintingFinished false.
  • The Ethereum contract supply read 3,402,225,984.268088325126165116 COTI at review time.
  • The historical 2 billion maximum applied to native V1 and its wrapped accounting; it is not a cap in the current Ethereum contract code.

Official links

Official websiteWhitepaperBlock explorerX / TwitterRedditGitHub

Frequently asked questions

Did COTI V2 merely upgrade Trustchain?

No. V2 replaced the specialized DAG direction with an EVM-compatible Ethereum Layer 2. The old Trustchain remains a distinct legacy ledger and migration path.

Are ERC-20 COTI and native V2 COTI two unrelated tokens?

They represent COTI on different networks. The official bridge converts Ethereum ERC-20 COTI to and from V2 native COTI. Supply analysis must account for locked and bridged representations instead of adding every ledger total.

Does every COTI V2 transaction hide its sender, recipient and amount?

No. Contracts choose what to encrypt and who may decrypt it. In the current PrivateERC20 interface, transfer values are protected but sender and recipient addresses are indexed publicly.

Can the Ethereum COTI supply still change?

Yes. On 5 September 2026, mintingFinished was false, so the owner could still mint. Calling finishMinting permanently ends that minting path. Holders can also burn their own units.

Why do supply figures differ across explorers and market sites?

They may count different representations, timestamps or circulating subsets. The exact figure in this dossier is the Ethereum contract totalSupply read, not a consolidated cross-chain circulating supply.

What does holding COTI entitle a user to do?

A holder can transfer the relevant representation, bridge through supported routes, pay V2 gas and opt into Treasury or staking products under their rules. The token does not by itself convey ownership of the Foundation or guarantee privacy in every app.

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