- infostien
How I see… Quant (QNT)
A few months ago, on my quest to diversify my portfolio I decided to take a look at a low cap cryptocurrency called Quant. If I was to explain what Quant network was, is and will be to the entire world, let alone to the cryptocurrency space, then I would simply say this.
“It is the neurones for the new technological body of the internet that will be built; known as the internet 2.0.”
As someone who studied a degree relating to human biology I can understand how boring this would get if I was to dive into depth explaining advanced science, after all, you came to learn about cryptocurrencies, but for all intents and purposes explaining something of this magnitude I believe it would be easier for people to have an image in their mind to visualise.
Neurones are nerve cells that can be divided into three main groups i.e., motor, sensory and relay. These nerve cells function to carry signals generated from the external environment (outside of the body) as well as the internal environment (inside the body) from the different tissues and organs all the way to the brain which coordinates and manages these signals and response. In a sense that is exactly what Quant network is when applied to the cryptocurrency space as a whole.
Quant Network is a patented blockchain agnostic operating system, interoperable as well as scalable on a global level, the first of its kind. Now as far as badass titles go, that’s a pretty epic introduction, but as far as you’re concerned it’s a lot of internet jargon that means nothing to you.
I’ll explain why it should.
Blockchains are segregated. Each one for the most part exists in its own world solving its own problem, building its own ecosystem. When the internet was originally constructed Berners-Lee intended that it would allow for data to flow freely from one person to another. The digital death of segregation. That vision of the internet however has yet to be truly realised, because of a fundamental flaw…
Trust.
In the same way, most nations in our world do not trust each other, that is essentially how data is on the internet and blockchain. People are reluctant to trust a network they haven’t designed or built, this means data is trapped in certain areas of the internet or stuck on certain blockchains. This would be like your foot being set on fire and wants to signal to the brain it's in pain, however, it doesn’t trust any of the organs or tissues to correctly do the job of relaying the message. One could say why doesn’t the foot connect physically to the brain and explain what’s wrong, however that wouldn’t work on a design level clearly, you’d be hopping around for the rest of your life and be uncomfortable. That could also mean you’d be potentially compromising the cells in the foot mixing with the cells in the brain. A mix of data. Sounds completely nonsensical right? Well, that’s the internet and blockchain as a whole.
Thus, that’s where neurones come in. That’s where Quant comes in. A single thread and layer that doesn’t require both organs or in this case, blockchains to compromise their data stored and the network design. They can both maintain their own segregated world yet interact with each other when needed to. Quant is building the internet of trust to allow data to still be secured at its genesis and connected to its destination.
Awesome now how does that again matter to me? I’m assuming that’s what you’re thinking.
It matters because the 4th industrial revolution is occurring before your very eyes and a lot of people in this world are none the wiser. The era of robotics and artificial intelligence. Old systems such as the financial system that governs all monetary policies to be created are archaic and inefficient, susceptible to hacks, self-made errors in data storage, not user friendly, and definitely not neighbour friendly. The pandemic we’ve all gone through has accelerated the burning of the old financial system and building of the new one. Digitalized cash. Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Quant is the neurones… no… it is the nervous system that will allow for this new financial system to operate across the whole globe.
Now I’m going to go out on a limb and say that everyone reading up to this point has heard of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple. Sorry, I didn’t mean to intentionally flex the senior citizens of the top ten cryptocurrencies (by market cap) to you just now but each of these cryptocurrencies plans to solve a problem they view in the world, and these problems overlap into the financial sector. The average cryptocurrency investor has at least one or two of these in their portfolio, and out of the current 9,000 cryptocurrencies in existence, I would think it's safe to say they hold a few others. There is something unique to each of these currencies that earned a spot in their portfolio, whether that be Bitcoin’s ability to capture value due to the high degree of securitization of its network due to proof of work, or Ethereum’s smart contract capabilities that have allowed for it to produce the greatest ecosystem in crypto to date, or Ripples fast, high transaction speed and scalable low-cost token XRP. That’s the same for most government and central banks.
If we as individuals are able to see the value of a blockchain network, then having hundreds to choose from, to build your nations new digital currency upon, must be a nightmare. The problem is if you build it upon Bitcoin’s network, you neither know the creator and or able to use it for fast payments. If you build it upon Ethereum you’ll have to deal with the high transaction fees when moving your currency from one location to another. In relation to XRP, you are devoid of smart contracts, so it has limited use cases available to it at the present moment, which is not ideal for the new generation of digital finance at your doorstep. Of course, all of these problems could get solved in the future, but you as a country neither know the length of time required to fix these problems nor can trust that they will be done without fault.
Quant allows for blockchains to be connected to its operating system known as Overledger. This means that blockchains connected are now interoperable with one another. A developer can build a digital currency on Ethereum’s platform to gain the smart contract capabilities, and move that information i.e. token onto another chain such as XRP to use utilise the low and fast transaction features.
Now when trying to imagine that, you might think how can it just jump from one chain to another, how does Overledger work? I personally like to imagine two sheets of paper, one placed over the other. On the paper beneath, there are two dots on either end of the paper. Separated in their own world. However, on the surface of the paper on top, there’s already a drawn-out road map that’s completely flexible in design which allows for a connected path drawn from either dot. If those dots connect to the paper above it, then by extension they two become connected. That’s how Overledger works, the dots don’t have to come into contact but anyone wanting to develop something on the surface above can switch from one dot to another using the newly connected surface.
I understand that was a lot of dot-connecting, (no I am not going to apologise for that pun) but without it, we wouldn’t be able to have the internet 2.0, a synergy of multiple blockchains working in harmony to achieve greater transparency in the data that we send, greater trust in how we send that data, in the ecosystems, we build and secure. The cumulation of years of effort and knowledge bringing together the realisation of the founder of the internet’s vision for humanity.
Well… at least that’s just how I see Quant.