Professional Background of Brad Goodwin
Brad Goodwin, an alumnus of Lancaster University with a degree in Economics, began his career at PwC as a Management Consultant. He subsequently transitioned to Adobe, where he contributed to the Global Strategic Business division. Goodwin has since become a vital member of the COTI Network, ultimately joining the organization as a Business Development Manager in March 2025. In this role, he collaborates with Web3 projects to integrate programmable privacy solutions.
Initial Attraction to the COTI Ecosystem
Goodwin’s interest in the COTI ecosystem sparked between 2020 and 2021, when he observed the network addressing unresolved challenges, particularly the blockchain trilemma. COTI demonstrated impressive technical expertise by balancing speed, cost, and security, creating a Layer 1 network specifically optimized for payment solutions. He was particularly impressed by COTI’s commitment to innovating in areas that were still emerging, such as utilizing Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) consensus and exploring algorithmic stablecoins before they gained widespread attention.
Impact of Community Involvement on Perspective
As a community member, Goodwin held a hopeful anticipation that the team was on the brink of achieving significant success, a journey that often takes years. Upon joining COTI, he discovered a wealth of activity occurring behind the scenes that surpassed his expectations. The company is collaborating with large-scale entities like the Bank of Israel and the European Central Bank, as well as initiatives such as Saudi Arabia’s AI Blockchain Center, which instills a greater confidence in COTI’s long-term vision. Additionally, many former community members have become close friends.
Privacy-on-Demand in COTI V2
Central to COTI V2 is the Privacy-on-Demand solution, which utilizes garbled circuits to enable any application to access COTI’s privacy layer without the need for extensive tech stack modifications.
Developer Experience Compared to Other Privacy Solutions
Garbled circuits offer a user-friendly experience, negating the need for specialized knowledge or unique programming languages. They provide consistent high performance without the overhead typically associated with Zero-Knowledge (ZK) or Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE).
New Use Cases Enabled by Privacy Technology
A notable application of this technology is in federated learning, allowing hospitals to train on shared datasets while keeping their raw data confidential.
Accessibility for Developers
The developer onboarding process has been straightforward, with over 60 partners integrated in just the past three months. Those familiar with Solidity or EVM will find the experience notably similar.
Cost Comparison with Other Privacy Tools
COTI’s privacy solution is exceptionally affordable, costing approximately $0.00061 per transaction, and this pricing remains stable even as transaction complexity increases.
Involvement in the European Central Bank’s Digital Euro Pilot
COTI’s participation in the Digital Euro pilot project encompasses three primary roles. Firstly, they are a pioneering partner, testing the robustness of the APIs that form the settlement layer of the digital euro. Secondly, they leverage their previous experience with the Bank of Israel in confidential payments. Lastly, they demonstrate how consumer applications can utilize their garbled circuits to interact with the settlement platform while ensuring privacy.
Potential Consumer Use Cases
While specific consumer-facing examples cannot be disclosed at this stage due to ongoing testing, Goodwin expresses enthusiasm about the potential opportunities that lie ahead.
Navigating Privacy and Compliance in Regulated Environments
COTI emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between privacy and anonymity in regulated settings. Anonymity, where transaction participants remain completely hidden, can raise compliance issues. Conversely, privacy involves limiting the visibility of transaction details. COTI’s data privacy framework allows users to control access to their information selectively, facilitating necessary disclosures to exchanges or regulators while keeping other data confidential.
Collaboration with StaTwig on Medical Supply Chains
COTI’s partnership with StaTwig focuses on tracking medical supply chains, including vaccine distribution. The technology ensures that sensor data, such as temperature and humidity readings, remains private while still providing real-time alerts. The sensor data is encrypted before transmission, preventing exposure in its raw format. By employing garbled circuits, the system can perform computations over encrypted data without revealing the complete dataset, ensuring that only authorized entities can access critical information regarding vaccine usability.
Scalability in Handling Large Volumes of Data
COTI is well-equipped for scalability, having been designed for high speed and low cost from the beginning. The performance of garbled circuits does not suffer as data complexity increases, maintaining constant communication rounds and resulting in sublinear performance impacts as data scales. This means that as StaTwig’s operations expand, the associated costs and processing speeds for privacy computations will remain stable, distinguishing COTI’s solutions from many others.
Enhancing Digital Identity Security
The recent surge in data breaches, including incidents involving massive password leaks, underscores the fragility of current digital identity systems. COTI aims to address these vulnerabilities by creating infrastructure that empowers users to maintain full control over their identities. Through a partnership with Civic, users can authenticate themselves, mint their identity as a non-fungible token (NFT), and securely store it on the COTI platform, with access granted to third parties only with explicit permission.
Future of Decentralized Identity versus Passwords
Passwords are inherently insecure due to common practices such as reuse or simplification, as well as the risk of forgetfulness. In contrast, private keys offer a unique and much more secure alternative. For a significant segment of the population, decentralized identity could indeed eliminate the need for traditional passwords. However, some individuals may still prefer to rely on institutions for trust; nonetheless, for those willing to manage their credentials, this represents a far safer future.
Vision for Privacy on Demand in Web3
COTI envisions Privacy on Demand evolving into a universal standard for privacy within the Web3 space, akin to how TCP/IP standardized internet communications. The goal is for Privacy on Demand to be the go-to solution for confidentiality, accessible to developers across both EVM and non-EVM chains without hesitation. While challenges remain, momentum is building as more teams recognize the potential for high-performance privacy without the need for specialized knowledge or excessive costs, a trend COTI is committed to advancing.
