Coin of the Week: QTUM 

QTUM (Quantum) is a blockchain project that provides smart contract services aimed at institutions and enterprises. It combines elements of Bitcoin and Ethereum, creating a more stable and scalable solution. QTUM are building a suite of tools to help organizations migrate from their old solutions onto the blockchain.    

QTUM runs the Bitcoin blockchain code - not on Bitcoin’s live blockchain, but with their Account Abstraction Layer (AAL) on top of it, which is capable of running Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVMs). This is useful for migrating dApps that have outgrown the native Ethereum blockchain and need a more scalable solution to operate, without having to rewrite everything to be compatible with another service. As Ethereum is being stretched to its limits in scalability and cost-efficiency, this foresight QTUM had is beginning to pay dividends. The Bitcoin UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) transaction ledger keeps track of balances, while the AAL handles the smart contracts and EVMs.    

Most blockchain platforms are attempting to come up with new and interesting ways of creating smart contracts and dApps platforms, including EOS’s ecosystem, Cardano’s peer-reviewed dApps platform, and Lisk’s ecosystem aimed at Javascript developers. These next-gen platforms are still largely in the conceptual stages of development.    

QTUM on the other hand went a different direction. Instead of trying to come up with a completely novel solution, it combined the best tried and proven methods available today, allowing them to open their platform much quicker than their competition, who are developing their platforms from the ground up.   

In addition to the elements that made Bitcoin and Ethereum successful, they are adding access to data feeds and “oracles”. Oracles function like APIs from external devices on the QTUM network that can supply data, perform long-term computation tasks, and then report results back. Oracles operate as trusted third parties, increasing QTUM’s ability to scale. These outside data transactions are governed by smart contracts. This functionality is very beneficial in situations where heavy computation loads don’t make sense to run on a single virtual machine.   

Interesting facts:   

• Consensus on QTUM’s blockchain is decided by Proof of Stake.  
• One of the problems that has been addressed by QTUM is the need to access blockchain solutions on mobile devices. QTUM has a mobile “light client” app that allows you to access your balances and smart contracts, without having to download the entire blockchain to your phone. 
• QTUM has been called the “Chinese Ethereum”. This name has also been given to NEO. Which project will continue to bear the name? All will reveal itself in the future. 
• The team of founders and engineers behind QTUM is very young. The team led by Patrick Dai, has members with backgrounds in both Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as in traditional companies like Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, NASDAQ and more. 
• QTUM is backed by 11 angel investors, a spattering of Chinese billionaires, and a mix of blockchain experts, including one of Ethereum’s co-founders, Anthony Di Iorio. 
• In March 2017, QTUM held a crowdfunding campaign for 6 days, in which it raised over $15M dollars.
  

Website: https://qtum.org  

Whitepaper: https://qtum.org/en/white-papers  

Coinmarketcap: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/qtum/