Coss stands for “Crypto One Stop Solution.” It’s an ambitious project that aims to combine an altcoin exchange with a marketplace for goods, payment gateway for sellers, crowdfunding platform and more.
On top of all that, it’s one of the few exchanges (and arguably the only altcoin exchange) that will support fiat-to-crypto trading. This will include USD, EUR, and SGD (Singapore Dollar) pairings beginning in March 2018.
While all this has many investors bullish on Coss, the current state of the Coss.io exchange website is a bit more modest. It’s known mainly at this point as a clunky exchange where you can pick up some underground coins like Kin and Gatcoin, as well as its native COSS Token.
The COSS Token
The Coss Token (Symbol COSS) is another major selling point of the exchange. It’s basically a way to buy shares of the company, and earn weekly dividends based on how the exchange performs.
Each week, Coss distributes 50% of its revenue to COSS holders, and its paid in the form of whatever coin was traded that week. For example, if 75% of the trading that month was in BTC, and 15% in ETH, and 10% in EOS, your bonus would be paid as 75% BTC, 15% ETH, 10% EOS, etc.
This has its pros and cons. Coss lists over 45 coins and growing, so you’ll be able to pick up a lot of unique low-market cap coins, just by sitting back and doing nothing. On the other hand, this also means your dividend is spread out over numerous assets. Unless you buy enough shares (~1000+), you might just be collecting dust.
COSS Dividend Estimates
As of this writing, 1000 COSS tokens earns you about $0.22 USD per week. This is based on $2m daily trading volume. To give yourself a more accurate estimate, use the formula below (thanks to stanec).
[Daily Trading Volume] x 7 x 0.002 x 0.5 / 63 million = weekly payout per coinAnd for those who are curious, here’s what all these numbers mean:
[Daily trading volume] x [days in a week] x [transaction fee] x [50% revenue share] / [total circulating supply of COSS]Now, $0.22 USD per week is not very substantial considering 1000 COSS will cost you around $1000 USD. The reason investors are hedging their bets on COSS is because they’re expecting this dividend to grow… a lot.
Here’s why:
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- As trading volume increases, so do dividends. Coss is currently ranked #100 in volume across all exchanges with ~$2 million in volume. The largest exchange, Binance, has over $2 billion in daily trading volume. While nobody expects Coss to overtake Binance anytime soon, fiat trading could bring it into the top 30, which would be a ~50x increase in volume and dividend payouts.
- The coins you collect are likely to appreciate over the coming months/years. Because these are low market cap coins and you’re getting in on the ground level, there’s potential to catch some moon missions.
- COSS tokens themselves will appreciate. As trading volume increases, interest in COSS tokens will boost as well. More demand = a higher value.
- You also get revenue from Coss’s other features, like their POS and their marketplace (when it goes live). The POS system in particular seems like a promising tool that could see a lot of real-world use from merchants.
The Coss Exchange Referral Bonus
Coss also rewards you for inviting other traders to the platform. Each user is provided a referral link that credits their account for new sign-ups.
However, despite how it seems, the referral bonus does not reward you with tokens. Rather, it helps reduce your trading fees. E.g. if you invite 10 new users who trade a combined $50k, this would reduce your fees from 0.2% to 0.18%.
Admittedly, this is a disappointment to bloggers like myself who try to earn a couple bucks from referrals… but it’s good news for the average trader. Referral programs can be bad for branding when users spam their links uncontrollably.
So Are COSS Tokens a Good Investment?
The success of COSS tokens hinges entirely on the success of the Coss.io exchange and merchant platform. Here’s the main reasons for and against it:
Pros:
- Fiat-to-crypto trading is a big deal. The only other sites I’m aware that support this either have a tiny selection of coins (Coinbase, Bitstamp, Gemini), are closed off to US customers (Bitfinex) or are running on an extremely slow and outdated platform (Kraken).
- There’s a pretty good selection of 45+ coins, and Coss is regularly adding new ones.
- Coss is based in Singapore, one of the most pro-crypto countries in the world. Regulatory risk is of little concern.
- Withdrawal fees are relatively low compared to the major exchanges — another small factor that could bring in more traders.
- Merchant services seems promising. Hosting a crypto point-of-sale on an exchange is intuitive, since you could accept and store payments in the form of any coin listed on the exchange. There is competition for this already, however.
Cons:
- It’s been in Beta phase since April, 2017, with some features (like the marketplace & fiat exchange) still not up-and-running. 9 months is a lifetime in the crypto-trading world.
- The exchange interface is cumbersome. It’s seen some improvements recently, but still nothing to brag about.
- The trading fee is 0.2% — most other exchanges charge 0.1%.
- Coss was developed by some of the same dev team as Veros, a failed token. Coss founder Rune Evensen addressed this in their Slack channel (re-posted to Reddit here), owning up to the mistake, but also casting blame on the consultant who designed their affiliate program. The program paid out too highly, eventually leading to its demise, and justifiably, leading many investors to call “scam!”
Many Coss users seem willing to accept Veros as a good willed-but-failed project. Coss.io evolved from its ashes, adding many more ambitious features and ditching the aspects (like profit-sharing affiliate program) that made it fail.
As for this writer’s opinion, I’m less concerned about their history, and more concerned about their development speed. In each of the markets Coss aims to corner, competitors are rolling out daily. While its promising to see some progress — like improvements to the interface, and fiat trading coming in March — there needs to be a lot more announcements like this to make Coss the truly exponential growth machine we’re hoping for.
Coss vs KuCoin
KuCoin is another exchange that offers a profit-sharing token: KuCoin Shares (KCS). This makes it Coss’s closest competitor, and a worthy comparison point:
- KuCoin is the 23rd largest exchange with $125m in daily volume. Coss is the 101st with only $2m in daily trading.
- Both list a wide range of unique, low-market cap coins. KuCoin has over 70 coins listed. Coss has 45.
- KuCoin Shares (KCS) are selling for $7.50 US (as of 1/26/18) compared to $1 for Coss tokens (COSS). Both distribute 50% of profits to shareholders.
- KuCoin’s payouts will gradually diminish to 15% if/when the volume has increased. Coss’s will stay at 50% indefinitely (this is actually hardwired into their Ethereum contract.)
- KuCoin has no plans for fiat support. Coss will be launching this in March, 2018.
In summary, despite them launching around the same time with similar business models, KuCoin is MUCH larger than Coss… About 50x larger. While you could argue this is good for Coss investors (you’re getting in on the ground level, rather than a ship that’s already set sail), it is a bit concerning to see how small the Coss exchange truly is, and far it has to go.
Of course, Coss’s plans for fiat support and a merchant platform could make it huge. It’s just a matter of getting them finished, and hoping the entire crypto market stays afloat.
As always, remember that the cryptocurrency market is extremely volatile. Only invest what you can afford to lose.
Feature image by Dmitrii