COTI

About COTI (COTI)

What Is COTI (COTI)?

COTI is a confidentiality layer for Ethereum. In its current form, known as COTI V2, it is a Layer 2 network that lets smart contracts compute on encrypted data, so an application can process values such as balances, bids, credit scores, or identity attributes without publishing them in plain text on a public ledger.

The technique it uses is garbled circuits, a form of secure multi party computation. Instead of encrypting data only at rest or in transit, COTI keeps it encrypted while it is in use inside contract execution. The network exposes this through a garbled circuit EVM, usually written as gcEVM, so developers can keep writing Solidity and add confidential data types where they are needed rather than rebuilding an application around a privacy stack.

COTI is the native gas and staking asset of that network. A bridged ERC-20 representation also exists on Ethereum, which is how most centralized venues list the asset.

Official sources:

• COTI
• COTI documentation
• COTI V2 whitepaper
• COTI explorer
• COTI on GitHub

Who Founded COTI? (History)

COTI was founded in 2017 and is led by Shahaf Bar-Geffen as chief executive, with Samuel Falkon and David Assaraf among the early founding team.

COTI did not begin as a privacy network. It launched as a payments protocol built on a directed acyclic graph called Trustchain, live in 2018 and at mainnet in 2019, later extended by MultiDAG so that other tokens could be issued on the same infrastructure. That lineage explains why older writing often describes COTI as a DAG payments chain.

The V2 program changed the thesis. Rather than competing as a standalone payment ledger, COTI repositioned as programmable confidentiality settled on Ethereum, with the garbled circuit implementation built in collaboration with Soda Labs. The V2 mainnet went live in 2025, alongside a bridge that lets holders move ERC-20 COTI and the governance token gCOTI onto the new network. Because the asset has migrated across two very different architectures, older descriptions of COTI are frequently out of date, and the official documentation should be treated as the authority.

How COTI Works

COTI V2 can be broken into three ideas.

1. Encrypted execution through garbled circuits A garbled circuit represents a computation as an encrypted boolean circuit that can be evaluated without revealing the inputs. COTI splits this into a heavy preparation phase, where network nodes do the expensive garbling work ahead of time, and a light evaluation phase, where user transactions are processed against material that is already prepared.

2. Privacy on demand inside an EVM Confidentiality is a per value choice rather than a whole chain mode. Developers use onboard and offboard operations to move a value into encrypted form for computation and back out again, and a result can be released only to a specific user key for client side decryption. Contracts can therefore keep some state public, for auditability, and some state private.

3. Settlement on Ethereum COTI operates as a Layer 2 over Ethereum, so Ethereum provides the base settlement and security anchor while COTI provides the confidential execution environment. The network runs its own chain identifier, RPC endpoints, and block explorer, and COTI is the gas asset paid for transactions there.

Key Ecosystem Components

The parts a builder or user is most likely to touch:

• The COTI V2 network, an EVM compatible Layer 2 with confidential data types
• gcEVM, the garbled circuit execution environment
• Confidentiality contracts and SDKs published for Solidity, TypeScript, and Python workflows
• The COTI Bridge, which converts between ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum and native tokens on COTI
• CotiScan, the network block explorer
• gCOTI, a separate treasury and governance token carried over from the MultiDAG era

COTI Token Utility

COTI is used for:

• Paying gas for transactions and contract calls on the COTI network
• Staking and node participation that supports network operation and rewards
• Funding confidential application activity, since encrypted computation still consumes network resources
• Bridging between Ethereum and the COTI network as the same economic asset in two representations

Treasury governance has historically sat with gCOTI rather than COTI, so the two should not be treated as interchangeable. Anyone planning to stake or vote should confirm which token a given program requires in current documentation.

What Makes COTI Unique?

The distinguishing choice is the cryptography. Most confidentiality projects lean on zero knowledge proofs, trusted execution environments, or fully homomorphic encryption. COTI committed to garbled circuits, long considered impractical on chain.

The tradeoff is worth understanding. Garbled circuits move most of the cost into a preparation stage, which can make live transaction evaluation fast, but it also means the network depends on nodes doing that preparation work honestly and in advance. That is a different risk profile from a proof system where a single prover convinces a verifier after the fact.

How COTI Differs from Similar Networks

Compared with other privacy oriented networks:

• Against confidential Layer 1 chains such as Secret Network or Oasis, COTI settles on Ethereum rather than running an independent base chain, so it inherits Ethereum security and liquidity assumptions
• Against zero knowledge privacy tooling, COTI targets shared confidential state that several parties can compute over, not only proofs about one user's private data
• Against shielded value transfer systems such as Zcash or Monero, COTI is a programmable environment, so the goal is confidential application logic rather than private payments alone

Use Cases of COTI

Applications commonly built or proposed on confidential execution:

• Confidential payments and payroll where amounts should not be public
• On chain credit, lending, and underwriting that use private borrower data
• Sealed bid auctions, private order flow, and dark pool style trading logic
• Decentralized identity and verifiable attributes shared selectively
• Enterprise workflows where regulation requires data minimization on a public ledger

How COTI Is Secured

Security rests on several layers at once:

• Ethereum settlement for the base security of the Layer 2
• The garbled circuit protocol and its multi party computation assumptions
• A network key split across nodes using threshold cryptography, so no single operator can reconstruct it and confidentiality holds while a threshold of nodes behave honestly
• Sequencer and node operation, which the V2 design describes moving toward a decentralized, rotating, stake based set
• Standard smart contract security for the applications built on top

Risks and Considerations

Points a reader should weigh:

• Cryptographic novelty. On chain garbled circuits are young relative to well studied proof systems, and privacy systems tend to fail quietly rather than loudly
• Decentralization progress. Sequencer and node decentralization should be checked against the current implementation, not whitepaper intent
• Bridge and migration risk. Two token representations across two networks create a genuine risk of sending assets to the wrong place, and bridging depends on contract security and operational caps
• Adoption risk. A confidentiality layer is only as valuable as the applications that actually use it
• Regulatory attention. Privacy technology attracts jurisdiction specific scrutiny, and access or listing rules can change

Why COTI Matters

Public blockchains are transparent by default, which is a feature for verification and a blocker for most real financial, corporate, and personal data. COTI is one of the more concrete attempts to make confidentiality a normal, selectable property of an Ethereum aligned smart contract rather than a separate isolated chain.

Where Can You Buy COTI?

COTI is listed on a range of centralized exchanges, usually as the ERC-20 representation, and is also traded on decentralized venues. Availability, pairs, and deposit networks vary by platform and jurisdiction, so confirm which representation a venue supports before transferring anything.

Major Centralized Exchanges (CEX)

COTI has commonly been available on:

• Binance
• KuCoin
• OKX
• Gate
• Kraken

Listings change over time, so check the venue directly.

Storage Options After Purchase

After purchase, COTI can be held:

• On an exchange, which is custodial and convenient but leaves the keys with a third party
• In an EVM compatible wallet configured for the COTI network, using the official RPC endpoint and chain identifier from the documentation
• In an Ethereum wallet if you hold the ERC-20 representation
• Behind a hardware wallet paired with compatible wallet software

Always confirm the network and the contract address from official documentation before sending funds, since the ERC-20 and native forms live on different chains.

Related Coins

• Secret
• Oasis Network
• Aleph Zero
• Zcash
• Ethereum