Covesting (COV)

Basics

• Compliant Cryptocurrency Exchange and Copy Trading Platform. 
• For profit company. 
• Founded in 20-10-2017. 
• Is functional (4-2019) 
• Based in: Gibraltar 
• Decided in 1-2019 to do away of their Telegram group and later also of their marketing. The later due to the bear market. 
• From ICO Holder (6-4-2020):

 "The Covesting Platform creates a synergized marketplace that brings investors, individual cryptocurrency traders and professional fund managers together. All parties benefit from the Covesting platform: Model Managers (traders) get access to new audiences and sources of additional income. Investors have access to a broad range of investment strategies to choose from and the ability to analyze historical performance in order to make the right investment decisions."

Token

Launch

• Different websites claim different numbers for the ICO.
• According to Crunchbase (6-4-2020):

"Covesting has raised a total of ETB20K in funding over 1 round. This was a Initial Coin Offering round raised on Oct 20, 2017."

• ICO Bench: "$33,241,750 value of tokens sold in ICO."
• ICO Drops: "$18,750,000 and available tokens for the Token Sale: 82%" And says it did have KYC.

Token allocation

• ICO Rating agrees with ICO Drops and adds:

Token distribution	75% - ICO  13% - Founders  7% - Pre - ICO  5% - Pr, bounty, advisors
Funds allocation	40% - Platform development 25% - Marketing expenses, PR and Customer Acquisition, presentations and region-specific roadshows 15% - Strategic partnerships 5% - Legal 3% - Owners and developer’s bonus

• ICO Eth address: 0xb4c5d471c73da165f8ab44822ed0eb48e4b94b20. Source

Utility

• From their blog (9-12-2020):

"It is designed to be used by strategy managers to reduce trading fees, improve the success fee split that goes to followers, while a regular buyback and token burn program will ensure the deflationary nature of COV.

Covesting aims to burn up to 50% of the fees generated within its copy-trading module at regular intervals. Fees will be calculated after excluding affiliate earnings, fee discounts, and other revenue impacts."

• From Bitcoin.com (14-9-2020):

"Trading Fee Reduction
The COV utility token was designed first and foremost with fee reduction in mind. Fees regularly eat into trader’s profits. Each successful trade closed using the Covesting copy trading module takes a commission from the profits generated, then part of the profits go to the strategy manager and the follower. While finalized tiers have yet to be determined, increasing levels of COV tokens held can lower rates by as much as a 10% to a 100% discount.

Improving Success Fee Percentage
In addition to lowering the trading fees for strategy managers doing the trading, the more COV tokens a follower stakes, a larger share of the success fees generated from each strategy manager’s winning trades will go back to the follower. By improving the profitability for followers, followers will be more apt to consider following other strategies and reinvesting any capital earned into additional strategies, helping to grow the entire Covesting peer-to-peer ecosystem.

Increase Follower Limits
Anyone can become a strategy manager and start their career trading and build themselves a reputation across the global trading community thanks to Covesting’s transparent five-star rating system. However, there is a limit to how many followers each strategy manager can have following them at any given time. The solution to this is the COV token. The DeFi token enables more followers and, therefore, a larger pool of equity to trade with and larger financial opportunity.

Token Burns
Part of what makes cryptocurrencies so unique is due to their deflationary design. Not only is supply scarce to begin with, but several tokens also have mechanisms that further reduce supply and drive up value and demand. Covesting says it will burn “a portion of the fees generated within the Covesting module at regular intervals,” either monthly or quarterly. Each token burn will result in a reduced supply, greater demand, higher value, and even more utility for early holders of the COV token.

Partner-Specific Secondary Features
While there are already four exciting “core” features the COV token enables on the Covesting copy trading module, there are still surprise secondary features coming that will vary by whatever platform the Covesting module is offered on, through the company’s white-label licensing agreement. At launch, the Covesting copy trading module is available exclusively on PrimeXBT. For example, these secondary features could lower fees on other PrimeXBT products or drive further innovation by bringing exclusive and unique tools to the market."

Technology

• Whitepaper can be found [insert here].
• Code can be viewed [insert here].
• Built on: Ethereum, ERC20

How it works

• From this blog post (25-2-2020):

"Here are the four pillars of the original Covesting infrastructure:

1. Crypto Intelligence Portal
2. Liquidity Aggregation
3. Covesting Digital Asset Exchange
4. Copy Trading Platform

Crypto Intelligence Portal; released.

While we still firmly believe that the Crypto Intelligence Portal hosts a wealth of useful information, we have decided to cease its operations due to the low demand for this type of information. The Crypto Intelligence Portal remains active via https://ci.covesting.io/ and still includes the Crypto Academy, complete with lessons and video tutorials that educate traders with helpful how-tos.

Liquidity Aggregation; Released

While other platforms struggled to build trading volumes, Covesting’s order books were deep and ready for instant order execution dating all the way back to the platform’s beta release in early 2018.

Liquidity aggregation still powers the Covesting trading terminal today, offering some of the best order book depth and fastest order execution across the cryptocurrency market.

Covesting Digital Asset Exchange; Released

The Covesting digital asset exchange was released as a beta starting on April 1, 2018, and is currently in operation. We plan to continue to maintain the Covesting exchange and everything that entails, including the infrastructure, nodes, wallets, treasury, trading engine, and more. However, we have allocated all remaining development resources towards finalizing the Covesting copy trading module.

There is little competition in fund management modules in the crypto market, making the Covesting fund management module on PrimeXBT a unique value proposition that stands out from the rest of the market.

Covesting Fund Management Module

Status: Beta launching on April 1, 2020

This year, on April 1, 2020, we will be releasing the Covesting module beta on the PrimeXBT trading platform for the first time, introducing to the world an innovative new trading experience. (Update (1-4-2020); did get released on that day.)

The module itself will be released in multiple phases, with the COV token and its utility being integrated during the second phase."

• From their blog (1-4-2020):

"During the Beta phase, only certain aspects of the Covesting Fund Management Module may be available. For example, investments are disabled during the Beta phase. To learn more about how the Covesting Fund Management Module works and the advanced technology powering it, please visit the Covesting blog here and the PrimeXBT blog here for additional information."

• From ICO Holder (6-4-2020):

1. "Users can easily browse through dozens of trading strategies, provided by professional digital asset managers and subscribe to the ones matching their goals.
2. Platform allows to get an overview of each strategy, access real-time and historica trading performance, read reviews and even ask questions.
3. Each member can diversify investments by following up to 20 different trading Model with individual risk management for each distribution.
4. Consolidated, real-time reporting enables investors to get a full picture of all investments at any time.

Instead of spending time on looking for clients, asset managers and crypto traders instantly get access to the combined capital of all Covesting community.
Each trader can easily setup a trading Model and earn additional income by allowing others to copy their trades.

The more successful trader is, the more Followers he or she will be able to get and more money to make from profitable trading.

Fund managers and traders have access to a variety of reports about every aspect of their trading, revenue and Followers - all in real-time."

Staking

• From their blog (28-4-2021):

"Building into COV token value further, we are introducing an innovative staking mechanism. By locking up COV tokens, users are granted with three tiers of account membership status — Advanced, Premium, or Elite — and enjoy a wide range of benefits within the Covesting ecosystem. Users who stake COV tokens will receive a massive APY boost, earning as much as 2x and high returns over standard variable rates. "

Liquidity Mining

• From their blog (28-4-2021):

"For example, on Uniswap, token holders of both ETH and COV must each provide liquidity by locking up tokens on both sides of the trading pair. Users receive rewards for doing so in the form of an APY. These rewards are distributed to liquidity providers based on the trading fees from those that would rather trade the COV/ETH pair instead."

Interoperability

• From their blog (28-4-2021):

"In order to enhance liquidity for COV token further, we will be building an ERC20-BSC bridge that allows users to easily switch between Ethereum-based ERC-20 tokens to Binance Smart Chain."

Compliance

• From their blog (9-12-2020):

"Please note that the COV token is not available in the United States and other jurisdictions where the transactions of ERC-20 tokens and specific cryptocurrencies such as COV are prohibited by law."

Upgrades

• From this blog post (25-2-2020):

"This year, on April 1, 2020, we will be releasing the Covesting module beta on the PrimeXBT trading platform for the first time, introducing to the world an innovative new trading experience.

The module itself will be released in multiple phases, with the COV token and its utility being integrated during the second phase."

• The second phase, with token utility starting has been concluded (9-12-2020).

• From their blog (27-1-2021):

"Released features (Aug-Dec, 2020)

1. Fully re-developed following/copy-trading mechanics to reduce rollover and allow instant following/unfollowing — see more
2. Dynamic margin utilization chart
3. Trading and risk management related metrics such as success rate, drawdown etc.
4. COV token dedicated page and utility integration
5. COV token treasury operations — secure deposits and withdrawals
6. COV token utility activation from BTC balance
7. COV token burn mechanism
8. COV utility 1% entry fee removal
9. COV utility trading fee discount (up to 75%)
10. COV utility success fee improvement
11. Rating/star system based on multiple metrics
12. Basic filter/search functionality
13. Stop-loss feature for followers
14. CPA and referral program integration
15. Public pages of all strategies for sharing and marketing purposes
16. Risk management — max. following limits, or caps
17. Risk management — grades introduction
18. Historical performance column charts for months/days
19. Responsive interface for mobile devices
20. ‘Verified’ status for managers who passed KYC
21. Improved performance and security features and behind the scenes improvements"

Roadmap

• From their own blog (14-4-2019):

"The current priorities on the Covesting roadmap are:

1. • Further optimize costs in order to maintain necessary financial liquidity for ongoing business operations.
   • Continuously test and improve existing trading infrastructure and platform.
   • Develop the features stated in the original white paper and introduce COV token utility into the platform.
   • Remain legally compliant under the supervision of regulatory authorities and remain ethically transparent to our users.
   • Continue to build awareness through token listings and other cost-effective methods.
   • Potentially consider external funding through the sale of Covesting equity.

When will COV token utility be realized?

The token’s primary utility is based on copy-trading functionality, thus its utility will be tied to the implementation of the feature. The secondary utility will reduce fees for traders on the platform, however, the feature will be introduced in an upcoming platform update. To manage expectations, no specific dates will be given, but we anticipate sharing more updates via our official communication channels during Q2 2019."

• From their blog (9-12-2020):

"After the trading module launch on PrimeXBT, Covesting aims to provide its software solution to other third-party exchanges and trading platforms through further expansion of our white labeling services as a fintech software developer."

• From their blog (27-1-2021):

1. "COV utility — staking as alternative to flat fee in COV for all existing utilities
2. Support of stable coins, other crypto and possibly even FIAT as a collateral for trading and following subject to global support of other currencies at PrimeXBT
3. Uniswap widget integration for COV staking and easy purchase on-chain
4. Rating improvement — favorites tab
5. Managers — show all trading history to their followers optionally
6. Managers — custom margin setup during strategy creation
7. Traders blog — one-way communication with followers/announcement channel inside the strategy
8. Take profit feature for active followings
9. Additional risk metrics: growth rate, max daily draw down, standard deviation, calmar ratio, sharpe ratio, volatility ratio, recovery factor
10. Additional transparency metrics — pie chart with most traded assets of the strategy
11. Appropriateness test / verification for strategy managers
12. Custom strategy offers allowing for adjusted success fees proportions between follower and a strategy manager during strategy setup
13. Custom margin settings allowing for adjusted max leverage during the strategy setup
14. Periodic profit distribution once per quarter/month/week — preset during the strategy setup
15. Advanced search/filter functionality
16. Covesting as a plug-n-play module
17. Additional COV token utilities depending on users’ feedback, observations, possible use cases etc."

Audits

• Bug bounty program can be found [insert here].

Bugs/Exploits

• When KuCoin got hacked (28-9-2020), KuCoin worked with Covesting to freeze and recover $560,000 COV tokens. This hints to centralisation within Covesting contracts.

Pros and Cons

Cons

• When KuCoin got hacked (28-9-2020), KuCoin worked with Covesting to freeze and recover $560,000 COV tokens. This hints to centralisation within Covesting contracts.

Team, Funding, partners

Team

• Has team 'experience' from J.P. Morgan, Barclays and Citibank. According to Crunchbase (6-4-2020) it has a team with between 11-50 members.
• Dmitrij Pruglo; CEO & founder
• Tim Voronin; COO & co-founder
• (Who both do not come from the above mentioned banks)

Funding

• According to a Redditor (8-4-2020):

"They originally put 2.5 million tokens into their reserve and they've transferred out half a million COV to 0x246a8bC2bC20826Ba19D8F7FC5799fF69A79388d on 2019-02-01 (1st Feb) at 15:30 when COV was roughly 0.18 cents.

Sources:
"Another 2.500.000 will be shared between the founders of the Covesting platform and locked in a smart contract for 3 months"
COV reserve token address: https://etherscan.io/address/0x25ed4f0d260d5e5218d95390036bc8815ff38262"