When Colu was first founded, our vision was to usher in a new way to pay and exchange value using public, open-source infrastructure. Over time, we understood that if this vision were to be realized, this would drive a massive change in consumer behavior. So we decided to learn how economic incentives could be applied on a local scale, and give local communities better access to a digital economy.

This vision is why we decided to launch our communities in Israel and following that in the United Kingdom. First and foremost, we wanted to create a product that people would love to use on a daily basis and will encapsulate some of the local economic activity. We were able to learn that digital money has a high consumer and merchant demand and we learned about the power of economic incentives in driving engagement.

As we prepare to move our current communities onto the CLN, we would like to share with you a little insight into their growth over the past year and the general sentiment of users and business owners using the platform.

Colu currently operates four communities across the United Kingdom & Israel. Tel-Aviv, Haifa, East London & Liverpool. The first local community was launched in Tel Aviv at the end of 2016.

Colu’s communities have seen explosive growth over the past year, starting with 13 users in January 2017 and with over 140000 users today. In communities like Tel Aviv it’s becoming hard to not use Colu, there’s literally a business that works with Colu on every block of the city!

The Map Density of Businesses in Tel-Aviv

The monthly transaction volume has also grown the same amount, peaking at over $1,250,000 in February alone. On the graph below, you can see the consistent monthly increase in transaction volume across all four of our communities.

Sentiment has been extremely positive both for end consumers and merchants — here is a bit of sentiment from twitter.

In the next update, we will give you an overview of our plans for the next quarter, including a BIG announcement regarding our current communities. Our long term road map will also be communicated in the very near future.