COSS

Opportunities:
The project has been in development since last year and it already has a working product.
Both segments of the project, cryptocurrency exchange and payment processing, are large and growing quickly. If COSS succeeds in becoming one of the leaders in either space, token values should appreciate substantially.
The utility of token is straightforward – the more transaction fees COSS generates, the more valuable tokens are.

Concerns:
I feel like COSS is trying to do too many things at the same time. On the white paper, they are working on “cryptocurrency exchange, newsfeed, market ranking, e-wallet, coin listing, cryptocurrency payment.”
Personally I would like to see the team focusing on one thing at a time, at least in the beginning.
COSS will have a difficult time reaching the hard cap of 216,667 ETH, given the relatively lack of awareness and current market environment.
COSS’ offerings are not better than those of competitors. If I were a user, I’m not sure if I would switch to COSS from other more established companies.
The team said that their differentiation comes from “bundling and the attempt to create a one-stop solution that is the main feature in itself.” However, there aren’t much synergies between the two segments – crypto exchange and payment processing. The target users are quite different.
The money that they raised may be used to acquire other companies. Current startup valuation, especially in the blockchain space, tend to be very rich and COSS may overpay for such acquisitions.

Conclusion:
Overall, I dislike the ICO for its short-term potential and am neutral about its long-term potential. Our thoughts of the tokens for short term and long term are as follows:
For short-term holding:
Not good because 1) it is unlikely that the project is able to reach its hard cap, 2) the token distribution date of September 20 is fairly far out.
For long-term holding:
Neutral. On one hand, COSS already has a working product, but on the other hand, the project seems to have a lack of focus as it is trying to do everything at the same time. The two segments, crypto exchange and payment gateway, don’t seem to have much synergies so there aren’t much benefits to provide this “one-stop-solution”.

COSS is designed as a one stop shop for the cryptocurrency community. Today, the platform consists of two core products, including a currency exchange and a payment platform for merchants. It’s still in the early stages of growth, as 150 merchants have signed up and 1000 users are using the platform. The company also offers a unique revenue-generating token where users are paid 50% of the transaction fees gathered by the platform on a weekly basis.