What is Qtum (QTUM)?

What is Qtum (QTUM)?

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Qtum (pronounced “quantum”) is an open-source cryptocurrency and blockchain-based platform and value transfer mechanism based on proof-of-stake (PoS) smart contracts.

It aspires to combine the advantages of Bitcoin and Ethereum into a single chain. Qtum is based on Bitcoin's UTXO transaction paradigm, but with the addition of smart contract execution and decentralized applications (DApps). 

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By seeking to combine the distinct characteristics of the two networks, Qtum intends to provide an alternative to Ethereum that is competitive in terms of programming while being compatible with Bitcoin, so delivering a kind of best-of-both-worlds blockchain solution.

The Qtum team hopes that this architecture would tempt users wishing to construct blockchain-based apps, which is Ethereum's primary value proposition, by enabling their creations to transact similarly to how Bitcoin works.

However, users are likely to discover that Qtum incorporates several additional features of rival cryptocurrency networks.

For example, Qtum's cryptocurrency, QTUM, is used to pay fees to individuals who assist in the network's operation, and freshly minted QTUM are distributed depending on asset ownership.

 

Component Qtum (QTUM)
Technologies Proof of Stake 3.0, MPoS, Account Abstraction Layer (AAL), Decentralized Governance Protocol (DGP), EVM, Neutron
Market Capitalization $759.6 Million+
Open-Source Yes
Consensus Mechanism Proof of Stake 3.0
Smart Contracts Yes
Founders/Authors Patrick Dai
Launch Date 2017
Circulating Supply of Coins 98,959,634 QTUM
Maximum Coin Supply 107,822,406 QTUM
Mining-based Coin? No
Is Qtum a Stablecoin? No
Does Qtum have a burn rate? No
Does Qtum have a Whitepaper? Yes, the white paper can be viewed here

 

Evolution and Development of Qtum

Qtum was launched in 2016 by the Qtum Foundation, a Singapore-based non-profit organization that creates and maintains the system.

In 2017, the Qtum Foundation generated $15 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) by selling 51% of the 100 million units of Qtum's cryptocurrency, QTUM.

The remaining supply was either distributed to investors and the founding team or used for company expansion. In October 2017, the Qtum software became online.

 

What makes Qtum unique?

While Qtum borrows from both Bitcoin and Ethereum, it is fundamentally different from both of its much larger counterparts.

Qtum implemented what it refers to as the Account Abstraction Layer (AAL), a technology that allows the usage of smart contracts with the UTXO architecture. AAL supports the interaction of the UTXO and smart contract concepts.

Additionally, Qtum employs a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus methodology rather than Bitcoin's proof-of-work approach. This simplifies the process of creating new currencies.

Due to the resource-intensive nature of Bitcoin's proof-of-work algorithm, the computer networks that mine its currencies use more power yearly than many whole nations. A PoS strategy streamlines the procedure and results in significant energy savings.

In a PoS system, miners are picked to verify blocks based on their stake in the system rather than on their ability to solve a complicated mathematical problem the quickest. The more the stake, the more likely the user will be chosen to verify the transactions.

 

What are the main uses for Qtum?

The QTUM coin is a crucial component of the overall operation and maintenance of the Qtum network, and it can be used for several functions, including holding, spending, sending, and staking.

As such, Qtum’s primary use case is for the payment of fees associated with the execution of contracts on the Qtum blockchain.

Additionally, users acquire the power to vote on network enhancements by holding and staking QTUM, with each vote proportionate to the amount of QTUM money staked.

While Qtum’s original supply was 100 million tokens, the protocol allows for additional tokens to be minted at a rate of four every block.

Unlike Bitcoin, however, QTUM is rare since the amount of QTUM produced in each block is halved every four years to maintain a limited supply.

 

What is the future potential for Qtum?

Qtum enables mobile access to blockchain-based apps while maintaining their decentralized nature (and security). Qtum's patented Account Abstraction Layer is paving the way for blockchain applications to be accessible in previously inaccessible areas.

It is also worth mentioning that, according to its website, this infrastructure blockchain will remain backwards compatible.

This implies that regardless of future blockchain changes, Qtum will stay compatible with crypto gateways and current Ethereum contracts, which might be a significant selling point for firms that embraced Ethereum's smart contracts early this year.

 

Price analysis on Qtum

Qtum was initially launched in 2017, and its price analysis over the past five years are as follows:

 

  2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 to date
QTUM Price High $19.15 $94.67 $5.60 $4.16 $27.09
QTUM Price Low $3.87 $1.57 $1.53 $1.04 $2.25
Market Cap $1.13B $6.99B $537.24M $404.08M $2.66B

 

Price prediction on Qtum

On 7 January 2018, following the recent cryptocurrency surge, the QTUM/USD price rocketed to an all-time intraday high of $106.88.

By the end of the year, the price had fallen to $1.50, much below its launch price of $4, and had stayed below $4 – except for a small uptick in June 2019 – until February 2023, when the larger cryptocurrency markets recovered.

The rise of decentralized apps and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has fuelled interest in alternative currencies such as QTUM. On 7 May 2023, the price rose to a three-year high of $35.38.

It recovered to a low of $4.46 on 27 June 2023, never above $8, until the market bottomed out at the end of July 2023. According to analysts, the price will reach $40.9 by December 2023 and then reach $72.43 by December 2025.

 

Where can you buy Qtum?

QTUM tokens can be bought, sold, and exchanged on the following popular crypto exchanges:

  1. Kraken
  2. BitPanda
  3. Binance

 

1. Kraken: Kraken is a well-known brand in the market where crypto exchanges are concerned. Jesse Powell launched the firm in 2011 and continues to oversee it more than a decade later.

From modest beginnings, they have grown to become one of the most renowned companies in the market, providing a large variety of assets to trade, trading fees that match all other major exchanges and have evolved to include futures and margin trading.

 

PROS CONS
Kraken is a long-standing exchange with a high trust score The currency range is limited
There are extremely low trading costs, which attracts many users The exchange can be too complex for complete beginners
The exchange has a high trust score  
There are several advanced trading features offered to experienced traders  
There are decent maximum leverage ratios offered  

 

2. BitPanda: BitPanda was launched in 2014 and rapidly gained a favorable reputation for being an easy way to buy and sell bitcoin in Europe.

Since then, they have used their great reputation to swiftly grow, to the point where they now provide trading in a wide variety of cryptocurrencies, in addition to the option to acquire precious metals and a variety of other services.

 

PROS CONS
The exchange is well-respected in Europe There are several fees charged
The exchange has regulations in France to offer financial services The trading platform does not have advanced features
Several cryptocurrencies can be traded The exchange does not accept United States clients
Users can also access precious metal instruments  

 

3. Binance: Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao, a now-famous developer. They conducted a successful initial coin offering (ICO) at the time to acquire funding for the exchange's debut. Since then, they have established themselves as one of the most well-known and trustworthy exchanges in the industry.

Binance, headquartered in Malta, has grown to become one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchange platforms for traders due to its reputation for openness, an extensive selection of cryptocurrencies, and reasonable exchange costs.

 

PROS CONS
The exchange features some of the lowest trading fees There is a high fiat minimum deposit involved
There is a massive selection of tradable digital currencies The trading platform can be intimidating for beginner traders
The exchange has a great reputation for secure trading  
There is support for both crypto and fiat deposits  

You can buy Qtum safely from these cryptocurrency platforms.

What is Qtum’s largest Competitor?

Ethereum is the largest competitor of Qtum.

The primary goal of Qtum is to make smart contracts more accessible and safer while also enabling data interchange with major digital currencies and projects such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Although the Qtum source is derived from the Bitcoin blockchain, the Qtum programmers have additional layers to the Blockchain that enable an Ethereum virtual machine to execute Bitcoin smart contracts.

Qtum benefits from all the recent innovations in the Ethereum and Bitcoin communities, as well as smart contracts, and so offers the best of both worlds. Ethereum is an open-source and decentralized blockchain, allowing users to create smart contracts, deploy DApps, carry out transactions, and several others, without interference from intermediaries.

Ethereum is powered by a decentralized worldwide network of computers that operate in unison. This network performs smart contracts, which are theoretically immune to third-party intervention or censorship because of the blockchain's resistance to manipulation.

These smart contracts are implemented on a scheduled basis, which decreases the danger of fraud, and they are completed automatically, as a machine would do so after certain terms and circumstances are satisfied, such as the transfer of cash that releases the product for transportation to the buyer.

 

What is the Staking Process involved with Qtum?

To maintain network synchronization, Qtum employs a kind of proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus known as mutualized proof-of-stake (MPoS).

Nodes must stake QTUM in a wallet to verify and execute transactions. These nodes get a reward in the form of freshly minted QTUM in addition to the transaction fees (paid in QTUM) contained in a block in exchange for verifying, processing, and recording transactions.

Every new block incentive is distributed evenly among the block generating nodes and the nine preceding nodes. This, the project says, decreases the likelihood of an attack by concealing the immediate block reward amount from prospective attackers.

 

What can Qtum smart contracts do?

With the “Value Transfer Protocol” update and other new solutions, the Qtum Chain development team built a durable public blockchain in answer to many issues in blockchain innovation and technological applications.

The AAL (Account Abstraction Layer) merged the UTXO and smart contract Account models, thereby eliminating the incompatibility between multiple blockchains.

The Qtum x86 virtual machine improved programming development capabilities, decoupled the system from the virtual machine and moved smart contract development into the mainstream.

The development team invented the PoS consensus technique, allowing worldwide PoS peer-to-peer networks to collaborate effectively.

The team also created the very first DGP (Decentralized Governance Protocol) mechanism for on-chain governance to ensure system stability.

Qtum Chain delivers several variations of the Qtum system, including various mobile solutions, introducing commercial route modules to promote third-party developers, and establishing an important global open-source community ecosystem.

The idea is to incorporate blockchain into businesses, including financial, social networking, gaming, and IoT. The Qtum Chain, the most promising blockchain ecosystem, flawlessly integrates the benefits of Bitcoin and Ethereum while addressing current blockchain flaws.

For the blockchain economy to grow, Qtum Chain will continue to establish a fundamental platform, as well as numerous product research and commercialization initiatives.

DGP regulates the blockchain network settings using smart contracts contained in the genesis blocks and specifies each party's governance seats and participation percentage.

Proposals might include increasing management or governance seats, deleting seats, changing network characteristics, etc. Users with governance seats vote on ideas, accept or reject them, and then implement them using smart contracts.

 

Is Qtum a Good Investment?

Yes, Qtum is a good investment.

Along with the ability to move Ethereum smart contracts to its own network, Qtum supports a range of widely used programming languages and developer tools, which may promote further development of the Qtum system.

Additionally, QTUM supports proprietary wallets and hardware wallets. Qtum is interoperable with Bitcoin gateways, Ethereum contracts, and decentralized applications (DApps) – and its growth plan is predicated on preserving this compatibility as the Qtum ecosystem expands.

This may entice some Ethereum developers to participate in the Qtum ecosystem in the years to come. Qtum is affectionately referred to as a “Bitcoin-Ethereum Frankenstein” by some since it combines the finest features of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Qtum, the world's first UTXO-based smart contract blockchain, integrates some of the most revolutionary elements of blockchain technology into a single platform. Its interoperability with the EVM enables it to play a critical role in DeFi, the IoT ecosystem, and other applications.

Qtum also works to improve the user experience by providing cheap transaction fees, fast transaction throughput, and the opportunity to engage in governance – a quantum leap for the crypto industry.

 

What is the supply and distribution of Qtum?

According to the official Qtum whitepaper, 100 million QTUM coins were created instantaneously before the project went live. In March 2017, an ICO offered 51 million coins to the public.

Eight million coins went to early private investors, while 12 million were locked up for four years for the project team. The Qtum Chain Foundation, a Singapore-based non-profit, will get the balance in four installments by March 2023. Twenty million coins for commercial growth and 9% for academic studies and promotion.

This means that the maximum supply of 107,822,406 QTUM will not be reached until 2045 when the block reward subsidy will be halved every four years.

 

Is Qtum a viable Alternative Coin?

Yes, Qtum is a good alternative coin.

  • Hacking – The Qtum blockchain does not have a history of hacking.
  • Security – The blockchain and platform are extremely secure because of unique measures and innovative features.
  • Technology – Qtum uses a variety of technologies, including Proof of Stake 3.0, MPoS, Account Abstraction Layer (AAL), Decentralized Governance Protocol (DGP), EVM, Neutron, and more.
  • Potential Investment and future use – Because of its unique integrations and technologies, Qtum has a lot of potential investment and a variety of future uses.

 

Any cryptocurrency that isn't Bitcoin is referred to as an altcoin.

What are the differences between Qtum and Bitcoin?

Qtum borrowed from the code of Bitcoin, but it differs in a wide range of ways. The team started with the deployment of the Account Abstraction Layer (AAL) by Qtum enabled smart contracts to be used with the UTXO architecture. 

Qtum likewise employs a proof-of-stake consensus process instead of Bitcoin's proof-of-work approach. This facilitates currency mining. Bitcoin's PoW method is resource-intensive, requiring computer networks to mine more power than many nations. PoS streamlines the procedure and saves electricity.

 

  Bitcoin Qtum
Price change 20/21 +400% +120%
Market Cap $800 Billion+ $759.6 Million+
Past Hacks None None
Popularity Very High Very Low
Altcoin Rank #1 – Original Crypto #105

 

What are the differences between Qtum and Ethereum?

Ethereum can process up to 15 transactions a second, with Ethereum 2.0 implementing sharding and PoS to improve this. Qtum has a transaction speed of 60 TPS, with plans to improve this.

The governance of Ethereum is like Bitcoin, while Qtum is purely based on PoS, a decentralized governance protocol, the Qtum Foundation, and plans to employ Qtum X, which will use Proof of Authority.

The development complexity of Ethereum refers to its Solidity programming language, with updates and fixes extremely hard to implement. Qtum uses the EVM but implemented x86 VM that supports C++, Python, and other programming languages. 

 

  Ethereum Qtum
Price change 20/21 +880% +120%
Market Cap $460 Billion+ $759.6 Million+
Past Hacks None None
Popularity Very High Very Low
Altcoin Rank #2 #105

 

What are the differences between Qtum and Dogecoin?

While Dogecoin was initially intended to only be a joke, it quickly gained a large following after its launch in 2013 and today. It is one of the most popular meme coins and mediums of exchange in the cryptocurrency market.

Qtum (QTUM) is an open-source blockchain-based platform founded in 2017 by a Singapore-based development team. The technology enables virtual computers and the blockchain to remain connected.

Additionally, Qtum users may utilize the platform to construct smart contracts and DApps. It is worth noting that Qtum is interoperable with decentralized applications created on different blockchains.

 

  Dogecoin Qtum
Price change 20/21 +7,300% +120%
Market Cap $22 Billion+ $759.6 Million+
Past Hacks None None
Popularity High Very Low
Altcoin Rank #12 #105

 

What are the differences between QTUM and NEO?

Qtum and NEO are both Chinese cryptocurrencies. Both currencies want to supplant Ethereum as the premier smart contract platform. Currently, it seems like NEO is dominating in the west, while Qtum lags.

It is difficult to discover differences between the two currencies right now. However, NEO is ahead of Qtum. NEO is a smart contract platform that supports languages like C# and Java.

The NEO blockchain has two assets: NEO and GAS. NEO indicates ownership while GAS fuels the blockchain. In addition to passive GAS generation, owning NEO gives you voting privileges on matters like who gets to be bookkeeper nodes. GAS pays transaction and smart contract fees.

Proof of stake method is required since NEO employs the dBFT consensus algorithm. To operate a bookkeeper node, a user must have 1000 GAS in their wallet, self-nominate, and be chosen by NEO holders.

QTUM is a combination of Ethereum and Bitcoin with its own technology. QTUM employs a SegWit-enabled Bitcoin blockchain with the Decentralized Governance Protocol (DGP).

DGP is a QTUM technology that enables the blockchain to alter settings without a hard fork. Blockchain elections may enable DGP modifications. QTUM employs Ethereum's EVM smart contract VM, made possible because of Qtum’s Account Abstraction Layer (AAL).

 

  NEO QTUM
Price change 20/21 +160% +120%
Market Cap $1.70 Billion+ $759.6 Million+
Past Hacks None None
Popularity Medium Very Low
Altcoin Rank #69 #105

 

What are the differences between QTUM and NFTs?

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are digital assets that each have a unique value, with no two NFTs holding the same characteristics or value as another. QTUM, on the other hand, is fungible, which means that one QTUM has the same value and characteristics as another QTUM.

 

What are the differences between QTUM and Cardano?

Qtum and Cardano are two cryptocurrencies with unique characteristics and applications. Qtum is a public blockchain platform that uses the UTXO security architecture to make the numerous virtual machines, including the EVM, function together.

Cardano's key uses are in identification and traceability. The former application may be used to expedite and simplify data-collecting operations. A decentralized group of researchers, engineers, and public intellectuals built Cardano to develop a technological platform that will spark good change in the world.

 

  Cardano QTUM
Price change 20/21 +2,100% +120%
Market Cap $42 Billion+ $759.6 Million+
Past Hacks None None
Popularity Very High Very Low
Altcoin Rank #7 #105

 

What is an ERC-20 Token?

The Ethereum blockchain uses the ERC20 token standard to create and issue smart contracts. As a result of this, anyone may invest in smart property or tokenized assets. When the ERC20 standard was created in 2015, it stood for “Ethereum request for comment.”

 

Is QTUM an ERC-20 Token?

QTUM used to be an ERC-20 token. 

Before the introduction of the Mainnet, QTUM coins were available as an Ethereum ERC20 token. These coins would be issued using a “0x” Ethereum address. In October 2017, the majority of Qtum holders exchanged their tokens for Qtum Mainnet coins, which have a “Q” address. Exchange services no longer facilitate token trading.

 

Which wallet support QTUM?

The best wallet options for QTUM tokens are:

  • Ledger Nano X adds Bluetooth connectivity, expands capacity, and has a higher-quality screen than the Nano S.
  • Exodus Wallet was launched in 2016 supports a variety of cryptocurrencies and includes features such as live chart monitoring.
  • Trezor Model T is the next generation of physical devices and a trusted hardware wallet with a wide range of features.
  • Qtum Electrum Wallet is a free wallet that can be used on mobile devices, desktops, as a browser extension, and in combination with hardware wallets, supporting Qtum storage secured by multi-signature.
  • Qtum Core Wallet is the native desktop and mobile wallet that can be used to send, receive and store QTUM. It also offers unlimited support for smart contracts, making it a popular option.

Best Bitcoin Wallets are the same as QTUM wallets.