Quant QNT

What Is Quant (QNT)?

Quant Network is a United Kingdom-based technology company that is focused on providing interoperable solutions that bridge multiple protocols, blockchains or other distributed networks. It offers a suite of services and products, including Overledger OS — a distributed ledger technology operating system — and Overledger Network — a decentralized "network of networks" that connects various DLT ecosystems together.

Quant's Overledger Network was officially launched in June 2020. The platform relies on a utility token called QNT (an ERC-20 token issued on the Ethereum blockchain) to validate transactions, pay network fees and reward participants that provide services to users.

Who Are the Founders of Quant?

Quant was founded in 2015 by Gilbert Verdian as a solution to the lack of interoperability between DLT platforms. Prior to starting Quant, Verdian served in multiple information technology roles, including as chief information security officer for payments processing company Vocalink as well as for Australia's New South Wales Ministry of Health. According to Quant, it was during his time at Her Majesty's Treasury in the United Kingdom where Verdian first learned the capability of blockchain technology, later coming to the realization that a lack of interoperability was holding back blockchain adoption.

In 2015, Verdian established the International Standards Organization's TC 307 standard on blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. He also founded payments platform Wekitt in 2015, artificial intelligence solutions company Trudera in 2012 and cybersecurity firm Protego Security in 2010.

Veridan has sat on several DLT-related committees and task forces, including Her Majesty's DLT for Healthcare committee, the UK Parliament's DLT for the Public Good Committee and the European Blockchain Observatory and Forum, as well as the United States Federal Reserve's FedPayments Improvement Community and Secure Payments Task Force.

What Makes Quant Unique?

The goal of Quant is to connect various DLT networks together to bring interoperability to the blockchain industry. The company's largest platform, Overledger Network, was first announced in September 2019 and is described by the company as a solution for enterprises to connect their own networks to various DLT networks. To do so, Overledger Network uses "gateways," which are hosts that provide access to either permissioned enterprise ledgers or permissionless blockchains.

Overledger Network is marketed to both enterprises and the development community, with separate white papers issued for both groups. Quant hopes that the network will become a "flourishing ecosystem" in which participating gateways charge users QNT for the data and services they contribute. QNT payments are managed by a community treasury that facilitates transactions between the user, gateway and Ethereum blockchain.

According to its business paper, Quant's business model for its Overledger line of products involves collecting QNT transaction fees, developing software-as-a-service products (Quant offers an Overledger Network for Enterprise service), offering distributed enterprise applications and licensing intellectual property. In addition, Quant retained control of 31.81% of the QNT issued during its token generation event.

How Many Quant (QNT) Coins Are There in Circulation?

Quant has a fixed maximum supply of 14,612,493 tokens. QNT was first made available for sale as part of a token generation event that occurred in April 2018.

According to its business paper, Quant initially anticipated minting over 45 million tokens, with 15 million QNT to be sold in a private presale, 31 million to be sold during the TGE and 14.467 million reserved for the company. Falling short of its goal, the company ultimately sold 9,964,259 QNT tokens. It has stated it has no plans to mint more tokens.

Of the QNT minted during the TGE, 31.81% (4,648,234 QNT) was allocated to Quant to be vested for a 12-month period. The company completed a token burn of 9,545,766 QNT in September 2018 to keep its reserve share at 31.81% of the total supply. Of the company's share, 43% was reserved for founders, partners, staff and advisors, as well as to pay fees to third-party service providers. The remaining 57% was intended to help cover operational and development costs.

How Is the Quant Network Secured?

QNT is an ERC-20 token issued on the Ethereum blockchain, which means that Ethereum's validators are responsible for securing any on-chain transactions. Ethereum relies on a proof-of-work consensus algorithm in which miners compete among each other to add new blocks to the blockchain and a majority of all nodes in the network must confirm a record for it to be posted.

Quant states in its community whitepaper that it takes cybersecurity seriously and that its team members have decades of experience in the area. QNT is used to validate every transaction on the network, with the additional option of signing and encrypting transactions. All enterprises, developers, users and applications must validate each transaction, and when encrypted, Quant itself can neither view nor alter a transaction.