Blockchain company Quant Network is tackling one of the most crucial areas in distributed ledger technology: interoperability. Currently, nearly all blockchains exist as independent entities and cannot communicate and interact with one another. We believe that interoperability is an essential and inevitable development for blockchain, and that the leading interoperability players will capture massive market share while paving the way for unique, world-changing blockchain applications.

Of course, any area with this much potential will be a competitive one; Quant is joining the fray alongside some of our favorite projects, including AION , ICON, and Cosmos. Yet even among this impressive roster, we believe Quant is poised to become a leader in the interoperability space.

What does the future of interoperability look like?

To explain why we’re betting on Quant, we must first look at actual market demands for interoperability. A promise of a “more connected world” certainly sounds attractive, but we must ask how that can realistically can be achieved, and how interoperability platforms will garner widespread adoption.

Currently, if one wants to create a decentralized application, they must first select a blockchain. While that initial step is obvious, it hides the first major pain point for adoption that is rarely discussed but enormously important: building on a single blockchain exposes one to all its risks and limitations. For the world’s most influential networks, such as large enterprises and governments, this is far from ideal. If a government wants to implement its voting system onto the blockchain, will they rely on Ethereum, which, while promising, is still in its nascent stages? Or will they instead spend the time and money required to build a proprietary chain? Ultimately, neither are an ideal solution: what if a critical security flaw is discovered in either chain? The current market norm of single-ledger dependency stifles adoption.

A second pain point is the high costs of migrating of existing networks to the blockchain. Think of government banking infrastructures, or SAP software used by 87% of global businesses. True adoption will require large-scale movement of existing technologies to the blockchain. The world’s biggest organizations, however, are rarely innovative in the realm of distributed systems. Current resource and overhead costs of migrating to a blockchain model are unfavorable to a majority of potential users.

Thus, we believe there is massive unmet demand for a solution that solves these two pain points — single-ledger dependency and organizational barriers to transition onto the blockchain — and any project offering such a solution will be propelled to the forefront of the interoperability space. We believe that Quant Network, with their unique approach to interoperability and tight focus on integrating existing government and enterprise systems on the blockchain, will emerge as a leading contender.

What is Quant?

In short, Quant Network is developing Overledger, an operating system that runs on top of multiple blockchains, enabling multi-chain decentralized applications (MAPPs). These MAPPs will allow the simultaneous use of different blockchains’ unique features in separate parts of an application, offering an unprecedented amount of modularity. Furthermore, Quant’s SDKs (Software development kits) will abstract away the underlying chains, so any integrated blockchains can be replaced as necessary.

As an example of MAPPs in action, let’s return to the idea of a national government bringing their voting system onto the blockchain. This application’s basic functionality could include 1) processing a minor voting fee, 2) relaying information, and 3) storing private voter data. In contrast to currently available blockchain technologies, Overledger could use separate blockchains for each of these processes. The subsequent MApp could use a fast blockchain for payment processing, such as Stellar, and a more secure blockchain for relaying and storing private data, such as Ethereum.

So what happens, then, if a major vulnerability is discovered in Ethereum? Thanks to Overledger’s blockchain-agnostic SDK’s, MAPPs built on overledger will be able to seamlessly migrate to another chain like Cardano or EOS.

Thus, Overledger’s modularity not only eliminates the problem of single-ledger dependency but also introduces a competitive advantage over other interoperability solutions: MAPPs will be able to leverage the strengths of different blockchains while avoiding their weaknesses.

The future of Quant

We’ve already explained, in short, the vision of Quant’s technology. However, such a vision will only become a reality if large-scale networks hop onboard. This is an ideal time to emphasize the second pain point in blockchain adoption — current resource and overhead costs of migrating to the blockchain are not favorable to large potential users such as governments or enterprises.

Quant themselves appear to be quite aware of this friction area, and their response is well outlined in their business paper. One of the most attractive solutions therein is the Overledger SDK, which will allow “legacy systems, networks, [and] external API’s” to integrate with Overledger. The market-leading decentralized protocols of the future won’t wait for enterprises or governments to come to them — they’ll take the reigns themselves. Quant is well aware of this and are prioritizing enterprise ready solution; further business strategies, such as the Quant MAPP store, Quant SaaS products, and professional business blockchain frameworks, are further outlined in the business paper.

Can they deliver?

The blockchain landscape includes countless projects that boast “game-changing” technology, without any significant real world industry connections. Quant, on the other hand, has already established a global network.

In 2015, Quant CEO and Founder Gilbert Verdian founded and chairs Blockchain ISO/TC 307, a set of international standards for Blockchain technology that is currently being developed by 46 participating countries at the time of writing.

Quant’s influence does not end there, though — their partnerships are formidable, with many more still under NDA:

Quant has signed an MOU with Jiangsu Huaxin Blockchain Research Institute (JBI), the blockchain research hub of The Chinese Ministry of Commerce .

. Quant has announced an ongoing collaboration with Mastercard. Gilbert Verdian, Quant founder and CEO, recently left his role as Chief Information Security Officer at Vocalink, a mastercard company, where he was responsible for the Security of the UK’s payment infrastructure for the Bank of England

Quant Network is currently in dialogue with the UK government regarding how Overledger can benefit the UK public and private sectors.

The magnitude of this political network cannot be understated. As governments worldwide join the blockchain movement, the landscape of blockchain will grow to involve blockchains and applications of all kinds — public, private, specialized, and unspecialized. Banking, healthcare, education, and national security are but a few sectors that stand to be dramatically disrupted by distributed ledger technology. In order for this transition to occur, governments will have to interact with a diverse range of blockchains, and Overledger’s multi-ledger approach provides an elegant way for them to do so. Given Quant’s aforementioned network, it’s clear that the Quant team has the ear of governments around the world.

Conclusion

A look into the interoperability space is an exciting one. AION, ICON, and Wanchain’s interoperability alliance will inevitably make waves, and Gavin Wood’s Polkadot will surely bring much needed technical innovation in the space. We believe, however, that Quant Network has identified the most effective strategies to bring blockchain to the global stage, and that they have the experience and connections necessary to do so. If they live up to their true potential, we foresee a paradigm shift that connects not only different blockchains but the entire world.