The Qtum blockchain officially commenced one-year ago today as the first proof-of-stake smart contracts system. Since this remarkable feat, which was years in the making, the team and the community have helped build Qtum into one of the most vibrant ecosystems.

We have advised non-governmental organizations, intergovernmental organizations, states, companies, students, enthusiasts and a plethora of other people on the benefits of blockchain technology and Qtum itself. We launched the first proof-of-stake smart contracts network and the first blockchain node into space. We have taught hundreds of developers how to use smart contracts in their applications.

It has been an adventurous year, and we couldn’t have done it without you!

Development Updates

We have been relentlessly working on advancing Qtum’s scaling, governing, smart contract features in addition to providing more development toolkits to take advantage of these innovations. It is our goal to see Qtum scale to 50,000 transactions per second via lightning networks, allow for more community and autonomous governance via our Decentralized Governance Protocol, and usher in a new age for smart contract development by bringing in traditional languages into the ecosystem.

Over the past year, Qtum has stayed up-to-date on the latest developments in the space in addition to introducing our innovations to the sector. Currently, we are working on Qtum’s version 0.16 update, which is our most substantial update yet. We consider this a game changer, a base for the future of Qtum and blockchain technology itself.

One reason is version 0.16 of Qtum has segwit technology enabled by default.

Our most substantial update yet!

Why is this so important?

This means that Qtum is now ready to scale far beyond what most people expected. Having segwit by default opens up the door for lightning networks to be easier to use than before.

This new Qtum release is the base for amazing new technology to be implemented. We’re talking about revolutionary innovations like the x86VM, which changes the way blockchain applications are developed, used, and viewed around the world. We consider this to be similar to those advances made in the early 2000’s which allowed the internet to become what it is today. The x86VM allows for blockchain technology to be a seamless part of our daily lives.

However, this update is not just about the future, it’s also about what users and developers can enjoy today, such as:

More efficient sha256 hashing, modern CPUs (with SSE4 support) significantly benefit from this. The speed improvement can be up to 50% depending on the task. Faster synchronization by 5%-10% — downloading the blockchain and syncing up with the network is now faster than ever, meaning becoming a node just became a lot easier. Lower CPU usage when performing tasks such as encrypting/decrypting — this is general usage for blockchain wallets and should allow your laptop to run cooler. Bech32 addresses — Human readable/QR code friendlier addresses (qc1qar0srrr7xfkvy5l643lydnw9re59gtzzwf5mdq vs. QNnksaiL90yat6x6DzJaSRupXgpvbc9UOj) HD wallets by default — This allows one private key to generate multiple addresses and makes backups easier with some potential privacy benefits.

We hope this increases adoption. Thus, allowing more people to write and use smart contracts as well as stake their Qtum to secure the network.

Non-core Development

In conjunction with the team’s efforts on the Qtum Core protocol, we have been working on supporting libraries, wallets, block explorers, API’s, and other toolkits that add a tremendous amount of value to the Qtum ecosystem.

We are happy that Qtum has been co-developing with Bodhi three tools to help power the Qtum ecosystem.

Qx: Decentralized Transaction Protocol

Decentralized Transaction Protocol QDex: Decentralized Token Exchange

Decentralized Token Exchange Qrypto: Browser Wallet Management Plugin (like Metamask) — released August 10th

Over the next year, we hope that more teams and independent developers build out the ecosystem by adding protocols and features that everyone can utilize.

Documentation

We have heard your concerns that building on Qtum is more difficult than it should be, which is why we have committed ourselves to provide better documentation for everyone.

Research Updates

Qtum has been supporting external research, in addition to our in-house efforts, which enables and enhances blockchain technology because it is our ethos to help give this technology to the world.

We are funding research at Tallinn University of Technology, the University of California — Berkeley, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xidian University, and the University of Sheffield.

At Tallinn University of Technology, we have funded three doctoral candidates, and two of them have had their doctoral symposium accepted by IEEE September 2018. The research topics are A Legally Social-Technical Language Development for Smart Contract and A Self-Aware Contract For Decentralized Peer-to-Peer Commerce. The Papers are to be published IEEE Xplore as part of the SASO proceedings and will be available in the IEEE Digital Library.

At UC Berkeley through our collaboration with Chronicled, we have funded research that aims to develop post-quantum applied cryptography, zkSNARK-based privacy-preserving smart contracts, and zero-knowledge proofs for large computations.

The Qtum Foundation launched a blockchain research laboratory with Xi’an Jiaotong University and Ink Labs earlier this year. The laboratory has a smart contract, blockchain architecture, cross-chain, and blockchain application research teams who share the goal of bringing the technology to the real world.

At Xidian University, Qtum launched a blockchain course in March that has eight chapters focusing on the technology, lasting two months with over 400 students from Xidian participating.

Through the Trusted Iot Alliance, we have established a grant program that has awarded researchers from the University of Sheffield to study a pan-European electrical power project focused on blockchain implementations. A total of $60,000 was award to the University of Sheffield with an additional $140,000 remaining if you would like to apply for some funds.

Community Updates

Over the past year, our community has grown tremendously, and we can’t thank you enough for the support. We went from 0 to 1,000,000 real quick, and we are continuously growing.