Qtum is an open-source blockchain platform that takes some of the best parts of Bitcoin and Ethereum and wraps them into a developer-friendly platform capable of supporting highly secure decentralized applications (DApps). 

Specifically, Qtum takes Bitcoin’s UTXO transaction model and combines it with an adaption layer interface to the Ethereum Virtual Machine to produce the first UTXO-based smart contract platform. Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum (for now), Qtum is secured by proof-of-stake (PoS) — more on this later. 

The platform features a theoretical throughput of up to 70 transactions per second (TPS) — making it around 16 times faster than Bitcoin and seven times faster than Ethereum. It also features low inflation and fairly distributed block rewards, ensuring stakeholders are properly compensated for securing the network.

It was founded in 2016 and launched its mainnet in September 2017. Like many 2016-2017 era platforms, Qtum was originally funded through an initial coin offering (ICO), raising a total of $15.6 million in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). At the time, this was the fourth highest-grossing ICO ever. 

Understanding Qtum

The founders of Qtum (pronounced “quantum”) sought to combine some of the best aspects of both Bitcoin and Ethereum, with the goal of becoming a secure exchange for business-focused decentralized applications (dApps). Qtum hopes to disrupt the online transactions market and become an integral part of industries such as finance and social networking. Its currency is called a token.

One core element of it borrowed from Bitcoin is the UTXO model, a sort of accounting system used by Bitcoin that provides a high level of transactional security. The UXTO system provides a type of receipt for unspent coins after a transaction. It copied and reworked Bitcoin’s UTXO code for its own platform.

It borrowed smart contracts from Ethereum. Smart contracts are blocks of self-executing code that, once verified on the blockchain, carry out the terms of the deal, making the contract irrevocable.

How Does Qtum Work?

It builds on Bitcoin’s UTXO transaction model by layering on additional scripting capabilities, allowing developers to build powerful decentralized applications on top of the platform. Developers have leveraged these capabilities to build out its rapidly growing DApp ecosystem — which includes decentralized games, search engines, payment toolkits, social networks and more. 

One of it’s defining features is its account abstraction layer (AAL). This essentially bridges the code gap between Qtum’s UTXO base blockchain with the account model used by its virtual machine, enabling more powerful smart contract capabilities. 

It’s secured by a custom variant of proof-of-stake (PoS) and recently added an “offline staking” capability allowing non-custodial address delegation to an online “super staker.” Qtum PoS uses the Qtum Core full node wallet to earn network rewards for staking it and publishing blocks. 

The QTUM token is the native gas token for transactions and smart contract transactions on it, and is also the reward token for node operators. 

In April 2021, it underwent a hard fork (known as FastLane) which saw the average block time reduced from 128 to 32 seconds, increasing block production four-fold. This upgrade is expected to better prepare Qtum for growing DeFi activity while improving confirmation times for standard transactions. 

Who Are The Founders of Qtum?

It was founded in 2016 by Patrick Dai, Jordan Earls, and Neil Mahi. After gaining a master’s degree in computer science, Patrick Dai served as CTO of VeChain and Chinese Bitcoin mining company Bitse Group before turning his attention to it and becoming the chairman of the Foundation. Jordan Earls has been developing software since the age of 13 and is also the President of Earl Grey Tech and the Co-chair of the Smart Contracts Alliance initiative. Neil Mahi has a master’s degree in business administration and has been working in software development for 20 years.

The founders are supported by a large group of team members with previous experience at NASDAQ, Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu, as well as the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities. The project is also backed by venture capitalists, important members of the blockchain sector, and executives from some of China’s largest technology companies.

The first Qtum hard fork took place in 2019, when the launch of Qtum 2.0 upgraded the consensus mechanism and introduced new features such as confidential assets, offline staking, and chain-cloud integration.

The Technology Behind Qtum

The technology behind QTUM combines elements of Bitcoin and Ethereum to provide a secure and efficient blockchain suitable for various applications.

The platform uses a custom version of the Bitcoin Core codebase as the foundational layer of the blockchain. It combines the ability to execute smart contracts via the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), a core Ethereum protocol.

It’s technology comprises several components:

• Account Abstract Layer: Manages accounts and transactions, based on Bitcoin’s UTXO model.
• Smart Contract Execution Layer: Responsible for executing smart contracts using the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
• Consensus Layer: Ensures consensus among network nodes, utilizing a Proof of Stake consensus mechanism.
• Application Interface Layer: Allows developers to build dApps on this blockchain using a range of development tools and APIs.
• Decentralized Governance Protocol: Mechanism for this token holders to participate in decisions regarding the network’s future development.

The Qtum ecosystem

This token ecosystem is a decentralized platform for smart contracts and dApps that combines the advantages of both the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. The network offers users a secure and scalable infrastructure for building and deploying dApps in various industries, including finance, identity, supply chain management, and more. What elements make up the Qtum ecosystem?

• Qtum Blockchain: The core of the Qtum ecosystem, a hybrid blockchain using Bitcoin’s UTXO transaction architecture and Ethereum’s smart contract functionality.
• Proof of Stake Consensus Mechanism: Used to generate new blocks and validate transactions, making the network faster and more efficient than Proof of Work blockchains.
• Qtum Innovation: This team has introduced various enhancements to existing Bitcoin and Ethereum technologies, including the implementation of the Account Abstraction Layer (AAL) and the Decentralized Governance Protocol (DGP).
• Qtum Core Wallet: The official wallet for storing and managing these tokens.
• Smart Contracts and dApps: This token ecosystem supports the development and deployment of smart contracts and dApps through the Qtum Virtual Machine (QVM) and Solidity, Ethereum’s programming language.
• dApps: This token ecosystem includes several native dApps, including Qbao, a multi-chain wallet, and InkChain, a platform for intellectual property and supply chain management.

What Makes Qtum Unique?

It is designed to provide a secure, reliable and highly efficient platform for private, public and enterprise use cases. 

Some of its main distinguishing features include:

On-Chain Decentralized Governance

It uses a custom-built decentralized governance protocol (DGP) to allow different stakeholders to have their say over how this platform functions, and allows certain blockchain parameters to be changed via smart contracts. 

Large Node Network

It has one of the largest node networks of any blockchain platform operating today. As of May 2021, there are a total of ~1200 Qtum nodes distributed throughout 60 countries — making it one of the most open and decentralized blockchains. Bitcoin and Ethereum count as the only blockchains with a higher active node count. 

Growing DeFi Ecosystem

It’s efficiency and rich smart contract capabilities have made it a hotbed for DApp development. Many recent DApps on the platform fall into the decentralized finance (DeFi) niche — including QiSwap (an AMM) and Qcore (yield farm).

The Qtum Chain Foundation also runs a DeFi and ecosystem incentive program, which will see up to $5 million allocated to developers building DeFi products and other ecosystem enhancements on the platform over a period of two years.

QRC20 Tokens

Like most popular smart contract-capable blockchains, it also features smart-contract-issued assets — in this case, known as QRC20 tokens. These can be coded with novel functionality to power a range of applications. 

Proof-of-Stake Consensus

It’s proof-of-stake is both efficient and highly inclusive. Practically anybody can help to secure the Qtum blockchain by running a full node — since there are no expensive hardware requirements. 

Learn more: https://qtum.org/

Benefits

Every blockchain platform has its own pros and cons. What are the advantages of it?

• The platform combines the best elements of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
• Advanced and innovative technologies.
• Prominent partnerships.
• A highly experienced development team.
• A high level of security.

Drawbacks

What disadvantages should you consider when investing in it?

• Relatively low adoption.
• Dependence on the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains.
• High competition.

What Gives Qtum Value?

This blockchain is a valuable environment for developers by virtue of its combination of security, functionality, and efficiency. Its compatibility with both Bitcoin and Ethereum, developer resources, and range of supported mainstream programming languages also make the platform suitable for an array of applications.

This cryptocurrency, on the other hand, derives value from its utility. As it is required for paying the fees for smart contract execution and QRC-20 transactions, there is demand for the token from developers. It is also an important part of the Proof of Stake consensus mechanism, which allows token holders to accrue more value through staking. Furthermore, those who stake this coin have the right to participate in protocol governance and vote on network upgrades. Their voting power is proportional to the amount of it they stake.

How Many Qtum Coins Are in Circulation?

There are currently 105,210,852 QTUM in the circulating supply out of a total of No data QTUM. The token was launched with an initial supply of 100 million QTUM, which was minted at genesis. The circulating supply increases over time as the token was created with a mining reward of 4 QTUM per block. However, the token follows a similar schedule to Bitcoin, with the block reward halving approximately every four years. By 2045, the block reward will reach zero and the max supply of 107,822,406 QTUM will be reached.

Other Technical Data

In March 2017, 51% of the initial QTUM supply was sold to the public through an initial coin offering. A further 8% was sold privately, 12% was given to the team with a lock-up period of four years, and the rest was allocated to the non-profit Qtum Foundation, which will use the funds for promotion, business development, and academic research.

What is the Qtum feature?

It works based on the Mutualized Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm, which is a variation of Proof-of-Stake. The chances of receiving a reward for a block depend on the ratio of the user’s Stake to the total number of it in the Staking.

This team developed the Account Abstraction Layer (AAL) technology, which allows the user’s UTXO to be represented as a single account balance, making it easier to work with smart contracts.

AAL supports C, C++, Rust and Python programming languages so that developers can implement existing applications on Qtum.

To transfer DeFi-protocols from Ethereum blockchain, it is possible to use Janus proxy-adapter, which allows to run popular projects like Uniswap and OpenSea on Qtum UTXO-blockchain.

In addition, this team introduced the Decentralized Governance Protocol (DGP), designed for users to change basic network parameters without a hardfork.

How to become a staker in the Qtum network?

Users can send these tokens to the stack directly (online stacking) or delegate them to another user (offline stacking).

For online stacking you need to:

• Download the Qtum Core wallet;
• Synchronize it with the blockchain;
• Transfer these tokens to staking in the Stake section of the wallet side menu.

The Qtum protocol has no minimum limit for staking. You can use a special calculator to calculate the expected reward. At the time of publication, the yield of staking is 5.73% per annum.

On August 28, 2020 this network activated update 0.19.1. It allowed delegating its tokens to other users (superstackers).

To delegate QTUM through Qtum Core wallet:

• Open the Delegations tab of the Stake menu;
• Add a delegate by clicking the “+” button in the upper right corner;
• Enter the name and address of the superstaker, and specify the commission you agree to pay for delegating.

The minimum number of tokens to delegate is 100 QTUM, although superstackers are free to set their own limits.

Only tokens with 2,000 or more confirmations can be sent to staking.

After the FastLane hardfork in April 2021, the average blockchain interval decreased from 128 seconds to 32 seconds.

Who Are Qtum’s Main Competitors? 

As a smart contract capable platform, it is built to power a future where practically any application can run in a decentralized fashion across a blockchain. But it’s not the only platform with the same goal in mind, some of its biggest competitors currently include:

1. Ethereum: The brainchild of Vitalik Buterin and seven other co-founders, Ethereum is currently the most popular platform for DeFi applications. It is beginning to undergo a major upgrade to transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) in the near future. 
2. TRON: Self-proclaimed as the “world’s fastest-growing public chain,” TRON is a high-performance blockchain that aims to serve as the infrastructure for an open internet. 
3. Binance Smart Chain: An Ethereum fork that has exploded in popularity in recent months thanks to its rapidly expanding DeFi ecosystem, low fees, and rapid confirmation times. It uses Binance Coin (BNB) as the native gas token. 

How To Use Qtum

Its Ethereum-compatibility means that Ethereum dApps can easily be deployed to the network. The range of supported programming languages also mean that mainstream developers can use the project’s technology stack. The blockchain is designed for use by businesses and its interoperability makes it suitable for supporting functions including production, logistics, planning, and external partner systems.

This token is used for transferring value, staking, and paying fees for smart contract execution and QRC-20 transactions. It holders can also participate in protocol governance.

How To Choose a Qtum Wallet

The official Qtum Core can be downloaded for desktop and mobile and used to store your QTUM. There are also plenty of other places you could store your QTUM and the wallet you choose will likely depend on what you want to use it for and how much you need to store.

Hardware wallets or cold wallets like Ledger or Trezor provide the most secure option for storing cryptocurrencies with offline storage and backup. However, they can require more technical knowledge and are a more expensive option. As such, they may be better suited to storing larger amounts of QTUM for more experienced users.

Software wallets, including Qtum Electrum and Atomic, provide another option and are free and easy to use. They are available to download as smartphone or desktop apps and can be custodial or non-custodial. With custodial wallets, the private keys are managed and backed up on your behalf by the service provider. Non-custodial wallets make use of secure elements on your device to store the private keys. While convenient, they are seen as less secure than hardware wallets and may be better suited to smaller amounts of it or more novice users.

Online wallets or web wallets, such as the one provided on this website, are also free and easy to use, and accessible from multiple devices using a web browser. They are, however, considered hot wallets and can be less secure than hardware or software alternatives. As you are likely trusting the platform to manage your QTUM, you should select a reputable service with a track record in security and custody. As such, they are most suited for holding smaller amounts of cryptocurrencies or for those making more frequent trades.

Kriptomat offers a secure storage solution, allowing you to both store and trade your tokens without hassle. Storing your QTUM with Kriptomat provides you with enterprise-grade security and user-friendly functionality.

Buying and selling it, or trading it for any other cryptocurrency, is done in mere moments when you choose our secure platform as your storage solution.

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