Creditcoin (CTC): Credit For Everyone, Not Just a Few

With money being the fundamental essence of modern economies, it is only natural that banking has evolved over the centuries to become one of the most lucrative sectors globally. While the fiat lenders continue to innovate more customer-friendly credit lending products in hopes of pulling more underbanked people into the system, one reality remains — there are potentially millions of financially underserved individuals across the globe today. 

This can be attributed to their inability to provide collateral for loans, which ultimately leads to the challenge of establishing a credible credit history to give them better opportunities to pull themselves out of the disadvantaged financial conditions.

Creditcoin aims to become the web3 credit bureau by introducing blockchain technology to credit lending. That way, it helps people currently unbanked or underserved by the traditional banking system to access credit and acts as a bridge between TradFi and DeFi. Their focus areas are emerging markets such as Africa, South America, Southeast Asia and other places where the credit lending system is failing.

Key Takeaways:

• Creditcoin is a credit network that has introduced blockchain into credit lending to serve the unbanked and underserved population as well as bridge the gap between TradFi and DeFi.

• Its user-centric ecosystem opens up marginalized investors to real-world assets (RWA) investment opportunities by helping them access collateral-based lending products.

• CTC has two tokens; CTC mainnet token, which drives the network, and the network’s vesting and trading token, CTC ERC-20 token.

What Is Creditcoin?

Creditcoin is a borderless credit investment network and a Layer 1 blockchain that helps facilitate easier access to decentralized credit services and credit history building for unbanked people from emerging markets. 

The platform also seeks to offer its users lucrative real-world asset investments previously reserved for a few rich entities.

Simply put, Creditcoin aims to disrupt the traditional financial system by offering a more straightforward and friendlier way to obtain credit through its decentralized credit lending infrastructure. 

The Creditcoin team believes everyone deserves an opportunity to finance their dreams to realize their economic independence. By opening up this space, fintech and microfinance lenders can also acquire wider access to capital and cater to a larger customer base.

Creditcoin was launched in 2019 on the Ethereum network by two fintech innovators, Gluwa and Aella. It has since launched its 2.0+ mainnet and created its blockchain to support the credit lending market. 

The platform is powered by Gluwa and is based on the Hyperledger Sawtooth infrastructure — both of which ensure that all credit transactions are matched, recorded and verified to achieve a trustworthy lending ecosystem.

Creditcoin has taken the Gluwa experience further by offering an app that connects its users to real-world asset investments through blockchain technology. It comes with a noncustodial wallet that allows you to connect to other wallets, stake and store your crypto.  

How Does the Creditcoin Network Work?

Creditcoin records the credit transactions on a decentralized ledger for security and transparency. As a public blockchain, the platform had to choose the consensus algorithm that would guarantee faster and more efficient transactions. 

Initially, the Creditcoin blockchain relied on the proof of work (PoW) algorithm to leverage its top security capabilities, but the team quickly realized that transaction times were slow and the loan process proved inconvenient for their users.

Now, the Creditcoin network uses a nominated proof of stake (NPoS) consensus algorithm that is responsible for verifying and processing the network’s transactions. In the NPoS algorithm, validator elections are held at the end of every era (24 hours). 

First, the validators stake a minimum of 1,000 CTC to mark themselves as candidates so the nominators can nominate them on the network’s staking dashboard.

Once the nominators finalize their selection, they stake their CTC to complete the process. 50 validators backed with the most CTC are chosen as part of the active set for the next era.

When the next era begins, the validators in the active set perform their tasks and are accountable for their stake as well as their nominator’s stake. Currently, the validators and nominators are rewarded after an era, depending on the era points the validators have collected. Should a validator conduct in actions that harm the network, the nominator's stake is slashed alongside the validator.

Overall, the algorithm ensures that the nominators and validators are rewarded for their work and penalizes the participants who may compromise the Creditcoin blockchain.

Source: Creditcoin blog

Creditcoin’s Real World Asset Transaction Flow

One of Creditcoin’s main goals is to bridge the gap between TradFi and DeFi. By integrating with fintech leaders and making direct connections with DeFi investors, many individuals, businesses and investors have successfully secured loans, developed credit histories and accessed lucrative real-world asset investments.

So, what would a typical loan cycle look like on Creditcoin?

The Creditcoin ecosystem consists of an investor (a lender on the network), a fundraiser (a borrower on the network) and a collector. The goal is to help them find each other on the network and facilitate impactful loan transactions. 

The loan cycle can start on either side of the divide — the fundraiser or investor. 

In the first version of Creditcoin, one transaction cost equates to 0.01 CTC, which adds up to a loan cycle costing 0.1 CTC. With the upgrade to 2.0, a single transaction cost may vary according to the amount of work needed to compute it, directly influencing the system's dynamics of loan cycle costs.

Source: Creditcoin white paper

Fundraiser Flow

Let’s start with the fundraiser-initiated loan cycle.

First, the fundraiser will start a loan cycle by building a bid order for their desired loan. They are then required to pay CTC as transaction fees for the network to complete the order. The order is then announced on the network and opened up for potential investors. The bid order includes the amount, interest, and maturity. 

If an investor approves of the terms, they create an offer that includes an ask order and a bid to match the order. If the fundraiser agrees with the offer, they can accept it and pay a Creditcoin network transaction fee to seal the deal. Note that on the Creditcoin network, the cryptocurrency used for borrowing and lending is Bitcoin, Ether and ERC-20 tokens, meaning that the deal is offered in another cryptocurrency, not Creditcoin. 

As for repayment, the fundraiser needs only to beat a concurrency problem where another account may make changes to the deal as the loan account shifts to a different owner. By blocking the account, the fundraiser can proceed to make the repayment without the investor’s involvement to complete the full loan cycle. 

Investor Flow

Alternatively, an investor can create a loan offer to attract potential borrowers. If they are interested in a particular fundraiser, they can retrieve their credit history using a sighash — a unique fundraiser identification string. If the fundraiser is creditworthy, the investor makes an offer and pays the transaction fee to close the deal. There may be occasions when the fundraiser is unable to make full payment. They can then negotiate with the investor to make a partial payment instead. 

An investor can decide to transfer the ownership of the loan or bond to a collector. They would have to find potential collectors outside the network since Creditcoin currently does not support such communication. Once the collector registers the payment transaction ID and the transfer is complete, the fundraiser is required to make repayments to the collector.

Creditcoin Tokens

Creditcoin uses two tokens to cover its operations and user-incentive programs. Let’s look at each of its two tokens in greater detail. 

CTC (Mainnet)

The CTC mainnet token is the native token that powers the Creditcoin ecosystem. This utility token can be used for:

• Paying network transactions

• Incentivizing participants

• Staking rewards 

• Securing the network

The main CTC token users are RWA fintech lenders and financial institutions looking to utilize the network’s transaction recording and validation infrastructure. These CTC tokens are not currently tradable on exchanges.

CTC ERC-20 (G-CRE)

The CTC ERC-20 token stands for the network’s vesting and trading token listed on exchanges — although the decentralized exchange platforms denote it as G-CRE. CTC (ERC-20) can be exchanged into CTC (mainnet) tokens through a one-way 1:1 swap.

Source: Creditcoin blog

Creditcoin (CTC) Price Prediction

As of Oct 18, 2023, the price of Creditcoin (CTC/G-CRE) is $0.13, which is a 98.48% drop from its all-time high of $8.67 on Mar 14, 2021, and 2.04% higher than its all-time low of $0.129 on Mar 13, 2020.

Price prediction experts are bullish on Creditcoin’s future price. PricePrediction, for instance, anticipates the Creditcoin price to rise to $0.54 in 2025 and increase to $3.69 in 2030.

Another price prediction platform, DigitalCoinPrice, is comparatively less bullish on the Creditcoin token and forecasts that it will hit $0.47 in 2025 and rise to $1.39 in 2030.

Is Creditcoin a Good Investment?

Creditcoin's proposed 2.0 protocol upgrade has improved the network's security, stability and performance required for RWA transactions. Despite achieving significant milestones like $70 million worth of RWA transactions and establishing its own validator network, Creditcoin continues beyond that.

The cross-chain operability and usability still have plenty of room for improvement, and Creditcoin looks to gain momentum for a multi-chain future.

In April 2023, the Creditcoin team proposed a 3.0 upgrade or CC3. Currently, Creditcoin comes with a built-in one-way oracle that allows for transaction verification, reading of information on other chains for wallet registration, and credit history consolidation.

With the upgrade, Creditcoin can evolve into an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain with Universal Oracles, improving its multi-chain interoperability. The built-in oracle will be accessible on universal smart contracts, and builders can build their logic and access multiple chains, opening up more functionalities. Developers will be able to build multi-chain applications and protocols and deploy them on the network without any limitations. With these changes, the network can anticipate a broader reach in the crypto space as more developers get on board.

Credticoin is also looking forward to wider adoption into the existing financial systems. As more unbanked borrowers and businesses embrace DeFi as a viable option to get cheap capital and build a credit history that opens up their investment opportunities, the demand for the cryptocurrency will increase, and so will its value. 

The team's innovative spirit in improving its current technology and constantly working on new partnerships, for instance, the discussion with Etherscan for a better UI experience that's similar to Ethereum, shows Creditcoin's commitment to its users and determination to dominate the credit lending market and it will remain a blockchain project to watch out for.

All these make Creditcoin a good investment for anyone looking to access credit that transcends the traditional financial system limitations, a decentralized way to manage their finances and the best DeFi investment products.

As with every crypto investment, we recommend conducting your own research before investing in any project.

Where to Buy Creditcoin (CTC) 

Are you ready to get yourself some Creditcoin (CTC)? Bybit makes buying Creditcoin (CTC) as a USDT perpetual contract a breeze. All you need to do is sign up with Bybit to create an account, fund it with USDT, search the CTCUSDT on the drop-down menu and open an order. That’s it! You're part of the world’s first inclusive blockchain-based credit lending and investment project. 

Closing Thoughts

Creditcoin (CTC) is focused on providing better credit opportunities for the unbanked and underserved across the globe. The network’s fast and secure technology allows anyone to borrow funds, create a credible credit history and interact with diverse DeFi investments. 

The world can look forward to CC3, where the team can launch RWA opportunities on multiple chains to increase the capital pools for its fintech lenders, thereby impacting more individuals and businesses. The future is bright for Creditcoin as it looks to cement its position as the top blockchain-based product that revolutionizes decentralized credit lending.

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