Creditcoin Q&A | September 2023

Welcome to the regular Q&A, where we take our time to answer some of the communities best questions about Creditcoin and the wider blockchain ecosystem.

If you'd like to have your question answered next month (and win CTC if it's selected), then make sure you follow us on Twitter and tap the bell icon to get notified when the Q&A survey goes live! Otherwise, feel free to drop into the Discord, say hi, and ask any questions you may have. Let's jump in.

Has Creditcoin considered the environmental impact of its blockchain technology, especially in the context of energy consumption?

Definitely. Part of the decision to migrate to NPoS was driven by the long-standing environmental issues faced by PoW consensus systems.

PoW, is both economically and energy-wise, a very expensive process, with the vast majority of energy used being ‘wasted’ as part of the mining process. Whilst this energy is wasted in the environmental sense, as part of PoW’s security design, this is all in fact quite intentional.

To attack a PoW network, you have to spend a huge amount of economic resources on energy and other mining equipment, making such an attack economically self-defeating. Whilst this might be good for security, all this ‘wasted’ energy, hardware and more has a big environmental cost.

Obviously the biggest culprit for this is Bitcoin, which is infamous for having a carbon footprint bigger than many countries around the world. Indeed, a single Bitcoin transaction uses almost enough energy to supply the average US household for almost a month! Crazy stuff.

Creditcoin 2.0 also used PoW. And even though the energy consumption and hashing power involved was on a much smaller scale, it still wasn’t elegant, necessary, environmentally friendly, or even cost-efficient!

By moving to a more energy-efficient consensus framework, namely nominated-proof-of-stake (NPoS), Creditcoin 2.0+ has reduced the energy consumption of the Network by over 99.9%. The environment is of course one of the major beneficiaries.

This isn’t just important for us internally, it’s also a growing concern and priority for our various institutional partners and stakeholders who are keen on avoiding ‘dirty’ technologies like PoW in favour of more environmentally conscious solutions. In fact, some regulators have even considered banning PoW blockchains owing to their poor environmental credentials.

But, the advantages of increased energy efficiency aren’t just environmental. There are also benefits for our users, RWA partners, validators and more! For more info about the other advantages of NPoS, why not learn more in our Creditcoin 2.0+ explained blog post here.

I'm looking for more information about Creditcoin’s Tokenomics. Could you provide an overview? How many $CTC tokens will be minted, where will they be allocated, what is the use case & what is the benefit for holding them in long term?

There are a few different sources you should check if you want to learn more about Creditcoin’s Tokenomics. We’ve highlighted a few of the key topics (and where to find information about them) below:

Circulating Supply: First of all, the Creditcoin Block Explorer is a good starting place, with the UI displaying the total circulating supply for both CTC tokens - CTC (mainnet) and CTC (ERC-20 aka G-CRE) - as well as various other network metrics. As of 03/08/2023 the current supply of CTC is as follows:

Mined CTC (mainnet): 155,843,303 CTC
Circulating CTC (ERC-20): 265,502,635 CTC

For more information on the key differences between the two tokens, and their utility, head to our CTC explained blog here.

Tokenomics: Creditcoin 2.0+ has made various changes to the core Tokenomics of the Network, including block times, block rewards and more! For a full explanation of tokenomics in 2.0+, including the long-term issuance schedule, head to the blog here. As a quick overview:

Block time: 15 seconds
Block Reward: 2
Transaction Fee Burning: Yes

Vesting Schedule: For more information on Creditcoin’s initial token allocation and vesting schedule, please consult the Creditcoin FAQ or Whitepaper.

Artificial Intelligence has become a new trend in the #Web3 space. Do you have any plans to integrate AI into your product in the near future?

It’s a valid question. AI is an incredible exciting technological development set to radically unlock new global opportunities. Including various synergies with DeFi and other distributed-ledger technologies. In particular, the security and cryptographic tools offered by blockchain can also offer a unique solution to many of the trust problems raised by AI today.

However, currently, AI lies outside of Creditcoin’s core mission. We are focused on delivering blockchain infrastructure. Infrastructure that can provide the foundation for a new AI-driven global economy.

Indeed, many of our institutional partners have already been leveraging AI and other machine learning technologies to power their credit risk assessment models for a number of years. In this way, we see the processing power of AI and the cryptographic power of blockchain working together. AI can predict risk, while blockchain can encode it and enforce economic agreements.

Whilst we are exploring the use of AI tools around Creditcoin to help improve the wider community ecosystem, for example, in providing clearer user information, querying tools and more, the integration of AI tools directly into the Creditcoin protocol is not a current development priority.

Marketing is a central element for every project, so that everyone knows the potential that a project can bring. What is your strategy to attract new users to your platform and keep them long-term?

We attract new users with engaging community campaigns and high-quality content that is distributed through our social channels. On socials, there’s a lot of noise, so it is important for our brand to stand out by being different.

Our core utility and mission revolves around RWA infrastructure. Unlike many blockchain projects, we know our differentiator is real blockchain utility. Our Creditcoin network has helped over 337k customers within emerging markets with their credit needs. These credit loans that were recorded on-chain are for personal and business needs that help local economies grow. Our core utility has been proven, so our marketing involves letting the rest of the world know what we've accomplished so far, as well as our other ambitious upcoming goals.

And we do this by properly educating our users and leaning on big-picture, non-hypey marketing to bring in real users to our network. Most of that is done by producing engaging content to attract new readers. Whether that means blog posts, our weekly newsletter (you can sign up here) or projects such as Gluwa Academy.

Plus, we’re always hosting events and other promotions with various partners across Web3. Most recently, SubWallet. These all help boost the project’s visibility and get more users involved in the RWA conversation!

Given the current liquidity problems, is the Creditcoin Foundation working on new solutions for mainnet liquidity, such as a bridge, DEX or other swap mechanism?

We are aware of the community’s concerns regarding mainnet CTC liquidity. Please stay tuned for an announcement on mainnet CTC liquidity coming this month.

About Creditcoin

Creditcoin is the world’s leading real-world asset infrastructure chain for financial institutions, connecting global borrowers, lenders and investors on-chain. To date, the protocol has helped its partners record over 4.27 million real-world credit transactions, valued at $79.7 million USD, while servicing 337,000 customers worldwide across emerging markets.

By transparently securing credit history and loan performance on the Credicoin network, the protocol has already helped thousands of borrowers, businesses, and investors secure capital financing, build credit history, and grow their global RWA investment footprint.